100 reveals domains wanted by corporate China — Fortune China
Study this list to understand what types of domains sizable Chinese firms prefer.
I’ve been diligently studying the Fortune China 100 list since these sizable firms can tell us what domains end users in China want to acquire.
Recently, I started with the Fortune China list and then used Baidu and Google to locate the corporate domains these sizable firms use. Here are the results of my research covering the last three years.
| Extension | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 72% | 71% | 70% |
| .cn | 25% | 26% | 27% |
.com and .cn together account for over 95% of all the domains. This means you need to focus on these two top level domains if you want to sell domains to end users in China.
Obviously, .com is the number one choice and this preference remained consistent over the last three years. Note that .com domains are widely used within China and .cn domains only play a secondary role, which is also evident in the next table.
| .cn | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not resolve | 51% | 55% | 54% |
| Developed | 34% | 33% | 33% |
| Forward | 4% | 3% | 4% |
| For sale | 7% | 7% | 7% |
Less than 35% of the corresponding .cn domains are actually put to use by the firms. This confirms my observation that it’s a .com world in corporate China.
| Length | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| <=10 | 84 | 83 | 82 |
Chinese firms like short names. The medium length of the domains (name only, excluding the extension) is consistently 7 characters, and over 80% of them are 10 characters or less.
| Language | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 44% | 44% | 43% |
| Acronym | 31% | 31% | 31% |
| Mixed | 19% | 18% | 19% |
| Pinyin | 6% | 6% | 6% |
| Numeric | 0% | 1% | 1% |
Surprisingly, English (but not Pinyin-based) domains are most popular. Some examples are ChinaMobile.com, EverGrande.com, and Midea.com. Mixed type domains consist of different language types, such as ZijinMining.com (Pinyin, English), CMBchina.com (acronym, English), and CMSK1979.com (acronym, numeric).
| Matching | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| yes | 54% | 47% | 49% |
Regarding half of the domains are not brand-matching, which implies that there are opportunities to sell domains as upgrades to corporate China. Some examples are China Life (e-ChinaLife.com), Greenland (GreenlandSC.com), and China National Building Material (CNBMltd.com).
In summary, English-based .com domains will continue to be sought following in corporate China.
