Opinion | Brand survey: Nokia, Dangdang still hot
Nokia and Dangdang both still have an important China asset in their strong brand recognition, but will probably lose that advantage if they fail to reverse their declines soon
All of this shows that building and maintaining brands is a tough business in China, a market where consumer loyalty is weak and low prices are often the most important factor in buying decisions. That said, the fact that Dangdang and Nokia are still considered top brands also shows a certain lingering effect, since both of these names were once leaders in their fields but have fallen off investor radar screens in the last two years as their leading positions have weakened.
Let's take a closer look at the results of the government-funded survey compiled by the China Brand Research Centre, which cover a wide range of areas from chewing gums to electric razors and cars. Tencent was the clear leader among Internet companies, winning recognition as the top brand in online games and coming in second for its microblogging and web portal services. Alibaba also scored well in its core e-commerce area, taking first and second places for comprehensive online shopping websites for its Taobao and Tmall sites, respectively.
But in a surprising result, Dangdang took third place in the shopping website category, beating out better funded and often bigger rivals like Jingdong Mall, also known as 360Buy, as well as Suning.com (Shenzhen: 002024) and Walmart's (NYSE: WMT) Yihaodian. Dangdang also took the top spot for online bookstores, showing it still has strong name recognition in its original business area.
Meantime, I was also surprised to see that Nokia was named the second most valuable mobile phone brand in China, beating out Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and behind only global leader Samsung (Seoul: 005930). Again, this result probably reflects the fact that Nokia was China's leading mobile phone brand for years until recently, though it has fallen a long way in the last two years after it failed to anticipate the rapid rise of smartphones. Reflecting how far it has fallen, the company didn't even make it onto a list of the top 10 smartphone brands in China in the fourth quarter, even as relative unknowns like Gionee and Xioami made it onto the list.