Lenovo was ranked the most powerful Chinese export brand by WPP and Kantar Millward Brown, followed by Huawei, Alibaba, Elex and Xiaomi.

Update: Check out the latest ranking of top China brands here.

The “BrandZ™ Top 30 Chinese Global Brand Builders” 2017 ranking lists the Chinese brands that have most successfully established a presence in overseas markets.

1. Lenovo
2. Huawei (among world’s top growing brand in 2016)
3. Alibaba (also ranked the world’s 2nd most valuable retail brand)
4. Elex
5. Xiaomi (Apple and Xiaomi are found most relevant to the lives of China’s Gen-Y and Gen-Z consumers )
6. Air China
7. Haier
8. Anker
9. Cheetah Mobile
10. Hisense
11. GO Launcher
12. OnePlus
13. dji
14. China Eastern
15. ZTE
16. FunPlus
17. Qihoo 360
18. TCL
19. Tap4Fun
20. I Got Games
21. Youzu
22. Ourpalm
23. GearBest
24. China Southern Airlines
25. LightInTheBox
26. Oppo
27. Vivo
28. Ninebot
29. Tencent
30. Great Wall

The awareness gap between Chinese brands and other brands is narrower in France, Germany, Australia, and Spain.

Related: China is a relatively “brand content friendly” market

Also read: Top Chinese Brands

China Southern Airlines launched its WeChat account in early 2013 and set up a dedicated marketing team. More than 200 products have been on sales on its e-commerce channels. WeChat users could reserve and buy tickets of China Southern Airlines.

Direct sales of China Southern Airlines increased by 103.60% YoY as of December 31 2015. Mobile sales grew by 189.65% YoY and WeChat marketing sales rose by 195.00% YoY as of December 31 2015 and value-added services revenues grew by 102.44% YoY.

China Southern Airlines has two WeChat service official accounts with a total number of over eight million followers. The number of app downloads of China Southern Airlines reached nearly five million; and, visits of the e-commerce platforms increased by additional 85 million in 2015.

China Southern Airlines has opened online check-in services in 153 cities (119 domestic and 34 international) and more than 15 million person-trips have used the service with an increase of 32.04% YoY in 2015.

As one of the leading airline suppliers, China Southern Airlines has been a good example of good usage of e-commerce platforms and WeChat. With the popularization of social media and online shopping platforms it will be a good choice for companies to market themselves.

Also read: China Digital Consumer View 2015