Abstract This study examined consumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societies and further to reveal whether more ethnocentric consumers would have higher preferences of domestic products. Multi‐item CETSCALE was applied in the study. Consumer surveys were administered in Taipei, Taiwan and in Shanghai, China, using stratified sampling method following the age and gender distributions of the populations between the ages of 15 and 64 in Taipei and in Shanghai. The differences in consumer ethnocentrism from respondents in Shanghai and in Taipei are that Shanghai respondents are more ethnocentric than Taipei respondents. Furthermore, ethnocentric consumers in Shanghai believe domestic brands of mobile phones are the best choices, while ethnocentric consumers in Taipei think domestic brands of mobile phones are the second best. Ethnocentrism has a strong influence on preferences of domestic brands. Ethnocentric consumers in both cities were relatively older, with lower educational levels, and had been travelling abroad fewer times in the past 3 years. Results of this study indicated that different patterns of consumer ethnocentrism existed in sub‐cultural Chinese societies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.