Tencent, Huawei and Ping An, three Shenzhen-based companies, have been selected as among China’s top 10 most valuable brands in a ranking published Monday by WPP, a global marketing communications company.

Alibaba has been crowned with its brand value at US$141 billion. Tencent took second place with US$138 billion. Huawei and Ping An took the sixth and seventh positions with brand values at US$33.2 billion and US$27 billion, respectively.

The total value of the Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands increased 30 percent to US$889.7 billion, the highest annual rise since the ranking was launched in 2011. The growth has been fuelled by brands accelerating their expansion into China’s lower-tier cities, which have seen rapid development and rising consumer buying power, and increasingly positive attitudes to Chinese consumer brands with a global presence.

Among the top 100, 11 enterprises are from the technology sector, contributing 26 percent of the ranking’s total value and dominating the top 10 leaders in terms of Overseas Presence with six brands — double the number from last year.

The enterprises include the world’s largest drone-maker DJI (No. 50, US$2.8 billion), UBTECH (No. 85, US$910 million), Xiaomi (No. 11, US$20.6 billion), Lenovo (No. 47, US$2.9 billion), Huawei and ZTE (No. 72, US$1.2 billion).

The ranking combines market data from Bloomberg with extensive consumer insights from over 3.7 million consumers around the world, covering more than 166,000 different brands in over 50 markets — including opinions from nearly 290,000 Chinese consumers on over 1,100 brands across 75 categories.