Technological innovation promoted the growth of Chinese real estate sales service companies, a report stated Thursday.

Brand value of those companies reached 4.43 billion yuan ($677 million) in 2017, up 20.6 percent year-on-year, according to the report released by China Real Estate Top 10 Research Group.

The scale of agency business was enlarged under the trend of de-stocking in the property industry, and related services became more diverse. Both contributed to the improvement of their competitiveness, the report said.

Intelligent technologies, including exhaustive data and virtual reality, were used in the customer preview, for online listings and to give a visual walk-through of the apartment, helping attract more customers, it said.

Technical tools also improved efficiency and the management of companies, with an overall improvement in monitoring of trading and client service processes.

The internet was also used to link sellers, clients and media to create specialized marketing, according to the report.

Real estate sales service providers in China put about 14 million yuan in brand construction in 2016, seeing an average annual compound growth rate of 6.11 percent from 2013. This shows companies began to pay more attention to their brands, according to the report.

China Real Estate Top 10 Research Group is made up of experts from the Development Research Center of the State Council, Tsinghua University and the China Index Academy.

It has conducted research for 14 years.