Chinese consumers' taste for luxury brands are evolving
Mainland consumers put cars top of their opulence rankings with beauty products, fashion and jewellery also popular, a new luxury index shows
Hong Kong-listed companies Chow Tai Fook, Coach and Prada have made their way inside the exclusive club of the "most sought-after luxury brands" on the mainland, a new survey says.
Major international brands in cars, fashion, beauty products, watches, jewellery and hotels continue to dominate the rankings found in the second edition of World Luxury Index China 2013, which was released yesterday by New York-based market research firm Digital Luxury Group.
The report was based on a study of more than 400 brands in more than 680 million searches made by consumers last year on the mainland's two most popular internet search engines, Baidu and Google.
David Sadigh, the founder and chief executive of Digital Luxury, described the mainland luxury goods market as "rapidly evolving".
The leading luxury brands in the report's top-50 ranking included Audi, BMW, Chanel, Estee Lauder, Louis Vuitton, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Christian Dior, Porsche and Lamborghini. Hong Kong jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook was ranked 17, United States-based luxury leather goods purveyor Coach at 22 and Italian fashion house Prada 24.
Brands that entered the top 50 for the first time were No 43 Elizabeth Arden, an American cosmetics company, and Swiss watchmaker Rado at No 50.