With services like on-demand food delivery, widespread 5G coverage, and versatile mobile payments, the 144-hour visa-free transit policy has allowed more foreigners to experience the conveniences of China's modern life through "China Travel," sparking a trend of "Becoming Chinese." These everyday service scenarios vividly illustrate the thriving development of "China Service." May 10th marks the 10th China Brand Day. What is the deeper meaning behind cultivating more "China Service" brands?

A brand is a comprehensive reflection of a company's competitiveness. Currently, China has a large number of service industry enterprises, but relatively few possess true international competitiveness as leading companies or well-known brands.

From the first mention in the "Government Work Report" of "cultivating the 'China Service' brand" to the recent release of the "Opinions on Promoting the Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Industry," policies have consistently signaled an important shift: leveraging national platforms like China Brand Day, China will transition from focusing solely on product breakthroughs to a dual-drive approach of "product + service," aiding the construction of a nation of strong brands.

Cultivating the "China Service" brand is an inevitable choice for economic transformation and aligns with global industrial competition trends. Take toys, for example: simple processing and manufacturing yield thin profits, while brands like "Labubu," which emphasize emotional value, reap the benefits of the fan economy. Strengthening service brands is key for Chinese companies to break away from low-price competition and advance toward the mid-to-high end of the global value chain.

Currently, the added value of China's service industry accounts for over 57% of GDP, and per capita service consumption expenditure exceeds 46% of total per capita consumption. This indicates a gradual departure from the development stage that prioritized products over services.

The previous extensive model, reliant on capacity expansion and low-price competition, not only easily leads to homogenized internal competition but also struggles to meet the demands of consumption upgrading. From the manufacturing end's transformation toward service-oriented manufacturing to the consumption end's upgrade toward experiential services, both industry and market pressures are making service a core competitive advantage for brands.

Cultivating more "China Service" brands relies on a robust manufacturing sector as its foundational base. Leveraging its comprehensive industrial system, China has taken the lead in developing new models of service-oriented manufacturing. For instance, a home appliance brand established a "Smart Home Innovation Laboratory," implementing 63 smart home scenario solutions, transitioning from "selling appliances" to "selling smart home service solutions."

Upgrading consumer demand serves as a crucial driver. Today, high-quality, personalized, and professional services have become necessities. Lifestyle services in areas like housekeeping, elderly care, and cultural tourism are advancing toward standardization and branding. Cultural and creative products are creating immersive cultural tourism services, while the health and wellness sector is promoting smart elderly care brand building, precisely filling gaps in niche markets and activating a trillion-yuan service consumption market.

Technological empowerment is the core driving force. Big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things are comprehensively enhancing service upgrades. Digital means break the time and space constraints of services, and "China Service" achieves dual improvements in efficiency and quality.

Looking at the global market, Chinese brands going overseas are undergoing a paradigm shift from product supply to value delivery, gradually moving away from the old model of simply "selling products." More brands are embarking on a coordinated "product + service" overseas expansion strategy.

For example, CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles exports rail transit projects overseas while simultaneously providing integrated services including construction, operation, maintenance, and training. A smart cleaning home appliance company, by expanding its self-operated channels and improving its localized after-sales system, offers integrated services such as equipment debugging, fault repair, and software upgrades, bringing cleaning robots into overseas households.

This new overseas model of "product + service + standards" allows Chinese brands to gradually gain pricing power in the global value chain and shed the low-end label.

Strengthening the "China Service" brand is both a practical measure to address the shortcomings in China's brand development and a core lever for promoting high-quality economic development. Building on the new starting point of China Brand Day, continuously expanding the service brand matrix will give Chinese brands greater influence in the global market, steadily advancing from a manufacturing and product powerhouse to a globally renowned brand powerhouse.