China’s Baidu search data shows the death of luxury brands among mainland consumers is much exaggerated
The lead of Western brands over domestic offerings is widening, search data shows
What do Taobao, Mercedes and Nike all have in common?
The three ranked as the top searched brands by Chinese consumers on Baidu, China’s search engine equivalent to Google, according to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML).
“While we cannot say internet search frequency guarantees or even accurately reflects a brand’s strength or profitability, in our view, it does offer valuable insight into consumer interest and
brand mind share, and may be a leading indicator of future market-share moves,” said BAML analysts Luo Chen, Tina Long, Lucy Yu and Kevin Zhao.
Chinese consumers no longer are willing to switch to a new brand based on a cheap price or a special promotion
E-commerce players like Taobao and JD.com have consistently dominated Baidu’s searches, which accounts for 70 per cent of the web search queries in China, since 2012, BAML data showed.