Forbes China has released its official Top 100 Emerging Brands list, after first launching a call for entries in December last year.
Based on brand scale, operational growth, and influence, Forbes China selected up-and-coming Chinese brands that demonstrate potential for sustainable growth. The panel of judges consisted of 21 leaders in academia, business, and consulting, including former vice president of L’Oréal China, Zhang Yaodong, deputy dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, Ma Li, and current Forbes China chief strategy officer Yan Gewen.
The judges reviewed brands across ten key categories – beauty and personal hygiene; clothing, footwear, and bags; jewellery and watches; mother and baby; creativity and play; sports and outdoors; food and drink; fresh produce; homeware; and computing.
Beauty and personal hygiene had the highest number of emerging brands, with 20 brands in this category making the final list, followed by food and drink with 15 brands. Of all the cities represented in the selection, Shanghai is home to the most emerging brands (19), closely followed by Guangzhou (16) and Hangzhou (14).
Among the beauty and personal hygiene brands selected is the beauty device brand Amiro. Founded in Shenzhen in 2015, Amiro has already made huge strides in a market saturated with established Japanese brands, seizing an impressive 20.96% market share as of February 2023 with its popular LED makeup mirrors. Another major up-and-comer in the category is Moody, which became the top-seller of coloured contact lens on Tmall and Douyin in 2021, just 18 months after launching.
The Chinese sportswear and outdoors market is now dominated by homegrown giants like Anta and Li Ning. With camping fever still raging on and new trendy sports emerging every season, there is plenty of room for newcomers to piggyback off their success. With its distinctive jet-black designs, the Ningbo-based brand Black Dog named by Forbes brings the typically family-oriented industry to cool-conscious young people. Meanwhile in the at-home workout field, Peloton rival FITURE has risen to become one of the world’s fastest-growing smart fitness companies with its 8000 RMB (1108 USD) workout smart mirror.
