List of the Most Admired Brands in Kenya: Safaricom Carries the Day

Brand Africa has announced the Most Admired Brands in Kenya with Safaricom carrying the day as the most admired brand made in Kenya as well as the most admired brand listed on the NSE.

In the Kenya and regional results, which are dominated by non-African brands, Coca Cola was recognized as the overall Most Admired Brand in Kenya.

In recognizing the catalytic impact of media and financial services in Africa, Brand Africa has a separate prompted question in the survey to highlight the Most Admired Financial Services Brands and Most Admired Media Brands in Africa.

In the media sub-survey, where the pan-African list is dominated by Europe at 40 percent, North America at 20 percent and Asia at 20 percent by global media brands with extensive pan-African reach, UK’s BBC, South Africa’s DSTV, USA’s CNN, Qatar’s Al Jazeera and France’s RFI lead the list of most admired media in Africa.

In Kenya,  Citizen Television was recognized as the Most Admired Media Brand Made in Kenya.

Where the pan-African media category albeit dominated by global brands, remains fragmented with numerous local and regional brands in all markets, the financial services category is relatively consolidated and African.  64 percent of the Top 25 financial services brands, led by Togo’s Ecobank (#1), South Africa’s FNB (#2) and ABSA (#3) among the Top 10, are all made in Africa and pan-African.

Kenya’s KCB was recognized as the most admired financial services brand in Kenya. Safaricom’s Mpesa (#13), retained its pole position among mobile money brands with Orange Money (#18), MTN Mobile Money  (#19) and Tigo (#23),  underscores the impact of not only Mpesa as the catalyst but mobile as a key enabler for financial access.

In a comparison of the most admired brands in Kenya versus the East Africa region, while Nike is the leading brand in East Africa, Coke is the leading brand in Kenya.  Fifty percent of the brands, all non-African – Coca Cola, Samsung, Airtel, Apple, and Nike – are common between Kenya and the region.

In a category analysis, Kenya Airways (Aviation/Transport), Citizen (Media), Safaricom (Telecoms), Tusker (Alcoholic Beverages), KCB (Financial Services) are the leading Made in Kenya brands in a list that’s 50% African (Kenya) and 50% non-African.

In the main overall Brand Africa 100:  Africa’s Best Brands list announced in May at the JSE in South Africa, while the top 100 is relatively stable, African brands faltered to an all-time low of 14 percent share of the Top 100 most admired brands in Africa.

Over the past three years, Africa’s share of the most admired brands has declined from a high of 25% in 2013/14 to lows of 16 percent in 2015/16, 16 percent in 2016/17 and 17 percent in 2017/18 respectively.

In the Top 100, the US sports and fitness mega brand, Nike retained the overall #1 brand in Africa spontaneously recalled by consumers.

The most admired African brands spontaneously recalled by Africans were South Africa’s leading pan-African telecoms brand, MTN, followed by Ethiopia’s Anbessa and Nigeria’s, Dangote. Where consumers were prompted to recall an African brand, Nigeria’s Dangote, was the most admired African brand, with South Africa’s MTN and Ethiopia’s Anbessa rounding out the Top 3.

In a geographical spread that covers brands from 25 countries in Africa, North America, Europe, and Asian brands lead the list with 41, 28, and 17 percent respectively rounding up the continental spread of brands Africans admire.

“One of the biggest challenges facing Africa is transforming its vibrant entrepreneurial energy and environment to create competitive brands that meet the needs of its growing consumer market, says Thebe Ikalafeng, Founder and Chairman of Brand Africa and Brand Leadership.

“More importantly, as is evident with Safaricom, Mpesa and Tusker, the leading made in Kenya brands, the next biggest challenge is retaining the ownership of these brands and ultimately the profits in Africa.  These rankings are an important metric of and challenge for creating home-grown competitive African brands that will transform the African promise and change its narrative  and image as a competitive continent.”

GeoPoll used their sophisticated mobile survey platform and its proprietary access to a database of over 250 million respondents in emerging markets around the globe to identify the most admired brands in Africa among a representative sample of African consumers.

“The scope of the Brand Africa study across such a diverse sample and geographic spread would be impossible to achieve using traditional research methodologies,” says Nicholas Becker, GeoPoll CEO. “Using GeoPoll’s mobile-based research platform and a large panel of respondents, we were able to quickly gather more than 15,000 brand mentions from 25 countries in Africa, providing brands with valuable data that will inform their growth. GeoPoll was pleased to partner with Brand Africa once again to gather this vital research across Africa.”

Kantar analyzed the resultant 15 500+ brand mentions and 2 200+ individual brands and created a weighted scoring to produce the Top 100 brands.

“The key to success for building sustainable brands, irrespective of origins or domicile, is to establish an emotional connection, creating intimacy and being more present in consumers everyday lives.  This survey, a complex analysis of diverse data and countries to arrive at a representative ranking, is an important metric of the brands that play that are doing a better job and playing a vital role in Africa,” says Karin Du Chenne, Kantar, Chief Growth Officer Africa Middle East