Guangdong Famous Brands' Global Language Strategies: Insights from Official Websites

This study examines the languages used by Guangdong Famous Brands to connect with a global audience. Only the official corporate websites of the 147 Guangdong Famous Export Brands of the year 2017 were chosen for study to get an in-depth understanding of the language options available to users. It's found that of the 147 export brands, 146 use Chinese as the main language of communication on their official websites with only one exception, Hopeful Enterprise, which only has an English corporate website. The reason why Chinese is adopted as the main language of communication on the websites is quite obvious. Firstly, these companies are based in China; secondly, while they are tapping into the potential of the global market, the huge Chinese market is of vital importance to them.

The language options available on the official websites of these brands are shown as follows:

• Chinese (146 brands)
• English (56 brands)
• Spanish (9 brands)
• French (8 brands)
• Portuguese (7 brands)
• Russian (6 brands)
• Arabic (4 brands)
• German (4 brands)
• Japanese (4 brands)
• Italian (3 brands)
• Korean (3 brands)
• Turkish (2 brands)
• Vietnamese (2 brands)
• Indonesian (1 brand)
• Thai (1 brand)

It's worth noting that some brands offer more than one language option on their websites. For instance, Midea Group, a leading home appliances manufacturer in China, provides website visitors with a choice of 13 languages, including Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, German, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. This is a reflection of the brand's commitment to global expansion and its recognition of the importance of language in cross-cultural communication.