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African Brands Miss on World’s Top 500 as TikTok Registers Fastest Growth

BY Soko Directory Team · January 26, 2022 04:01 pm

KEY POINTS

While there have been significant improvements and performance across various fields, there are still no African brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 ranking. Global brands continue to dominate the top position.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

TikTok was named the fastest growing brand across the globe thanks to its value that tripled over the past year.

The most anticipated brand value ranking of the year, the 2022 edition of Brand Finance Global 500 has been released and sadly, no African brand appears on the list.

This is the 16th edition of the annual study into the world’s 500 most valuable and strongest brands across all sectors and countries.

While there have been significant improvements and performance across various fields, there are still no African brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 ranking. Global brands continue to dominate the top position.

Africa’s most valuable brand, MTN, which is valued at 4.0 billion dollars was 600 million shy of making the required threshold for the 2022 ranking.

Brand Finance’s Managing Director, Jeremy Sampson, noted that with Africa soon to house a quarter of the world’s population, it makes it ripe and quite lucrative for global multinational brands.

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“Within this context, no African brands feature in the ranking of the world’s 500 most valuable, as many local brands have been discontinued by global giants. However, South African telecoms giant, MTN is currently performing very strongly and well-positioned for the future, so could be expected to move closer to being included in the ranking next year,” Mr. Sampson said.

Fastest Growing Brand

TikTok was named the fastest growing brand across the globe thanks to its value that tripled over the past year. With an incredible 215 percent growth, the video app’s value rose to 59 billion dollars in 2022 from 18.7 billion dollars recorded in a similar period in 2021.

Globally, TikTok was ranked 18th among the world’s top 500 most valuable brands and it is the highest new entrant to the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 ranking.

This growth was attributed to the Covid-19 restrictions, which exploded digital entertainment and saw an increase in the uptake of social media, and streaming services.

The app’s strategic partnerships, such as its sponsorship of the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament, exposed TikTok to demographics outside of its original Gen Z base.

It crossed the one billion user mark in 2021 and became the most downloaded app across Android’s Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

Media Brands

Generally, media brands account for the top 3 fastest-growing brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 2022 ranking.

Another social media app Snapchat shot its brand value up 184 percent to 6.6 billion dollars while the South Korean internet brand Kakao increased its value up by 161 percent to 4.7 billion dollars.

Other notable performers from the media sector that realized impressive growth include those that offer streaming services, such as Disney, whose brand value rose 11 percent to 57 billion dollars).

Netflix, on the other hand, saw its brand value up 18 percent to 29.4 billion dollars, YouTube (brand value up 38 percent to 23.9 billion dollars), and Spotify (brand value up 13 percent to 6.3 billion dollars).

Traditional media brands, in stark contrast, have consistently dropped as more people favor social media and on-demand streaming for entertainment.

Since the onset of the Covid-19, three media brands have been falling, fast. Warner Bros saw the biggest brand value loss at 40 percent, with NBC (brand value 9.4 billion dollars) and CBS (brand value 7.4 billion dollars) seeing losses of 38 percent and 36 percent respectively.

World’s Most Valuable Brand

Apple recorded a 35 percent increase to 355.1 billion dollars – the highest brand value ever recorded in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking. This makes it the world’s most valuable brand.

At the start of 2022, data showed that the tech giant had hit a 3-trillion-dollar market valuation hinting that Apple had a stellar 2021. Its success was largely attributed to its remarkable brand positioning. The recent growth, however, can be owed to the tech firm’s recognition that its brand can be applied effectively to a much broader range of services.

Although iPhone still accounts for around half of the brand’s sales, Apple, in 2022 focused more on its other brands including a new generation of iPads, an overhaul to the iMac, and the introduction of AirTags.

Its range of services, from Apple Pay to Apple TV, has also gone from strength to strength and become of increasing importance to the brand’s success.

brand value growth

Amazon and Google also kept their spots in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking behind Apple in 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. Amazon joined Apple in crossing the 300 billion dollars brand value mark with a 38 percent increase to 350.3 billion dollars, navigating global supply chain issues and a labor shortage in the process.

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Google, on the other hand, grew by 38 percent to 263.4 billion dollars. This was largely due to its dependence on advertising.

Technology and Tech Brands

Technology and tech brands make the most valuable brand in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking.

The sector recorded an impressive performance that almost hit 1.3 trillion. The sector owes the Covid-19 pandemic a thank you as it exacerbated their growth.

A total of 50 tech brands appear in the global 500 rankings. But up to 50 percent of the cumulative total belongs to three big players, Apple, Microsoft (brand value 184.2 billion dollars), and Samsung Group (brand value 107.3 billion dollars).

Surprisingly,  Huawei managed to reclaim its place among the top 10 most valuable brands in the world, following a 29 percent growth to 71.2 billion dollars.

The Chinese tech giant was hit hard by US sanctions, but it reacted positively by heavily stepping up investment in both domestic technology companies and R&D, as well as turning its focus to cloud services.

Retail Sector Continues to Thrive

For the first time in the history of Brand Finance Global 500 ranking, the retail sector crossed the 1-trillion-dollar mark making it the second most valuable sector.

Before the pandemic, it ranked as the third most valuable sector behind banking, but a boom in e-commerce has seen it pull away whilst banking has remained stagnant.

Retail saw an upward surge during the pandemic period with a brand value increasing by 46 percent. This outpaced the tech and media sectors which grew by 42 percent and 33 percent respectively.

Pharma Brands See Healthy Growth

Another sector whose value was enhanced by the Covid-19 is the health industry. The sector realized faster growth in the Brand Finance Global 500 over the last two years than any other sector.

Pharma brands have been in the limelight since the start of the pandemic as the world turned to the sector for Covid-19 tests and vaccines. As a result, unsurprisingly, the number of pharma brands in the ranking doubled from four to eight, with brand value increasing by 94 percent to 54 billion dollars.

All eight brands featured are more valuable than they were in 2020, with those that produced Covid-19 vaccinations seeing the biggest increases.

Johnson & Johnson remains the most valuable, with a 24 percent brand value increase to 13.4 billion dollars.

New entrant to the ranking AstraZeneca secured the title of the sector’s fastest-growing, with a remarkable 77 percent rise in brand value to 5.6 billion dollars, followed by Pfizer as the second fastest-growing at 58 percent, pushing its brand value to 6.3 billion dollars.

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Tourism Brands Gradually Recover

Technically speaking, the brand value in this sector is still down, especially when compared to the pre-pandemic period. The number of brands featured in the Brand Finance Global 500 fell from 5 to 9.

Nevertheless, all the brands that appeared registered brand value growth, which gives a positive outlook in the sector.

Hilton ranked best with brand value rising 58 percent to 12 billion dollars and Hyatt hitting 26 percent to 5.9 billion dollars.

The hotel sector recorded the fastest level of growth, with the two brands in the ranking, Airline brands all saw an uptick in brand value as international and domestic travel increased, though none recovered to their pre-pandemic level yet.

The online booking platform booking.com also rose to 8.7 billion dollars while the car rental firm Enterprise’s brand value stood at 7.1 billion dollars.

Airline brands also saw an uptick in brand value with Delta Airlines hitting 7.3 billion dollars; American Airlines, 6.3 billion dollars; United Airlines, 5.5 billion dollars; Emirates 5 billion dollars; and new entrant Southwest Airlines clocking 4.9 billion dollars.

The full Brand Finance Global 500 2022 report is available here.

Soko Directory is a Financial and Markets digital portal that tracks brands, listed firms on the NSE, SMEs and trend setters in the markets eco-system.Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/SokoDirectory and on Twitter: twitter.com/SokoDirectory

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