Luxury brand tops China's YouGov BrandIndex for 2016

Source: YouGov BrandIndex. Overall brand rankings for 2016 in China.

The YouGov Brandindex rankings for 2016 are out for China and show that luxury fashion comes first. Chanel is in top place, followed by Wechat and then Alipay from Alibaba.

Source; YouGov Brandindex. Brands which improved the most on positive Buzz in 2016 for China. Malaysia Airlines did best on this ranking.

Brands were rated using BrandIndex’s Buzz score* which asks respondents, “If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?”

The Buzz Rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average Buzz scores* between January and December 2016. The Buzz Improvers chart ranks the brands with the highest increase in Buzz comparing scores in years 2015 and 2016. Both scores are representative of the general population. Malaysia Airlines, Mengniu yoghurt and Huawei are the winners here. It should be noted that Malaysia Airlines remains in negative territory, but has been viewed less negatively compared to 2015.

Other results include:

+For e-commerce and m-commerce, Tmall, Jingdong and Taobao were in the lead. Alibaba.com was listed in fifth place, making it a hat-trick for the Alibaba Group as it also owns Tmall and Taobao.

+Pizza Hut, then Starbucks and McDonald's made the top three the quick service restaurants (QSR) and casual dining category. Haidilao, then McDonald's and KFC were the top three brands which covered positive ground in terms of Buzz compared to 2015.

+Luxury fashion was dominated by Chanel, Dior and Hermes. Givenchy was the only brand listed as showing an improvement in Buzz rankings over 2015. Athletic fashion had Nike, Adidas and Anta in the top three places. Lining, Vans and K-Swiss were the top Buzz improvers year-on-year. Lining also scored fifth place in top Buzz rankings for this segment.

+The most recognisable white goods and appliances brands in China are Midea, Gree and Haier, in that order.

+For insurance China Life Insurance, Pingan Insurance and China Pacific Insurance took top billing. Slight improvements in Buzz rankings were seen for New China Life Insurance, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and China Post Life.

+Top Internet brands include Wechat, QQ and Baidu.

+When it comes to mobile technologies Huawei, iPhone and China Mobile were the top three. Huawei, China Mobile and China Telecom were the top Buzz improvers for the year. 

+There are two sets of travel rankings, for hotels (Shangri-la, Hilton and Sheraton) and travel destinations (Disneyland Shanghai, then Disneyland Hong Kong at the top, followed by Bali). Buzz improvements occurred for the Philippines and Malaysia for destinations, while hotel discussions were more positive for the Ritz Carlton, Waldorf Astoria and Jumeirah in that order.

*All Buzz scores listed have been rounded to a single decimal place; additional precision was used internally to assign ranks.