Do the best AI startups in China prefer? — What domains
Chinese artificial intelligence firms use .com, and most use English names.
I enjoy reading news regarding Chinese AI startups since I believe they will lead corporate China in the future. As most firms tend to follow leaders, studying domains purchased by top AI startups may tell me trends in domain buying in China.
Recently, AI-Startups.org published a list of the Top 15 AI startups in China. Based on the list, I used Baidu to find out domains used by these startups, as shown below.
| Rank | Startup | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SenseTime | SenseTime.com |
| 2 | UBtech | UBtech.com |
| 3 | Megvii | Megvii.com |
| 4 | Mobvoi | Mobvoi.com |
| 5 | Rokid | Rokid.com |
| 6 | Roobo | Roobo.com |
| 7 | ByteDance | ByteDance.com |
| 8 | Liulishuo | Liulishuo.com |
| 9 | Cambricon | Cambricon.com |
| 10 | Appier | Appier.com |
| 11 | Synyi | Synyi.com |
| 12 | Tianrang | Tianrang.com |
| 13 | SandStar | SandStar.com |
| 14 | Elsa | ElsaSpeak.com |
| 15 | HiHedge | HiHedge.com |
Characteristics of the domains can be summarized as follows:
- All 15 startups use .com.
- All except one domain (ElsaSpeak.com) match their corresponding brand.
- Only two are Pinyin-based. The rest are English or English-like.
- All domains are fewer than 10 characters (excluding extension).
- Two-word names are popular.
The conclusion is obvious: .com is king in China too. Specifically, English-based brand-matching .com will continue to be popular. In other words, the EnglishDotCom domain strategy is the way to go.
