12 Chinese Brands Make This Year’s BrandZ Global Top 100 List

Apple remains the BrandZ^TM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand for 2013, worth $185 billion. Apple grew just +1% in the last year compared to a +51% growth from its closest competitor, Samsung, which is now no.30 in the global ranking with a brand value of $21 billion.

Google is also a serious challenger for the no.1 spot, reversing last year’s decline to grow +5% in brand value this year. The brand is no.2 in the ranking with a value of $114 billion. IBM is no.3 in the ranking with a brand value of $112 billion.

The combined value of the Top100 has grown by 77% since 2006. They are now worth $2.6 trillion.

Key findings highlighted in this year’s research report include:

Top risers provide meaningful differentiation: The Top 10 brand value growth risers score significantly higher than average on the BrandZ™ equity measures of Meaningful, Different and Salient. Prada grew the most in brand value, by +63%. Outstripping the performance of all other luxury brands it is now no.4 in the luxury category (95 globally) and worth $9.5 billion.

Brewers experienced a rapid rise: The world’s most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, beer, was the highest growth category in the rankings this year. The Top 10 beer brands grew by +36% and are now worth a combined $63 billion. The sector has benefited from growing sales in Latin America and China. Global brewer Heineken is the third largest beer brand worth $8 billion, and profited from publicity around the James Bond Skyfall movie. Brazil’s Brahma beer grew by +61% in the last year and is worth $4 billion.

High value brands provide faster growth: An analysis of the BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands as a ‘stock portfolio’ over the last eight years shows a highly favorable performance compared to a current stock market index, the S&P500. While the value of the companies in the S&P500 index grew by 23%, the BrandZ™ portfolio grew by 58%, proving that companies with strong brands are able to deliver better value to their shareholders. A graphic is available here.

Technology brands continue to dominate the ranking，Tencent exceeds Facebook for the first time: Technology and telecom brands continue to dominate the ranking with 29 brands in the global BrandZ™ Top100, worth 43% of the total value of the Top 100, more than $1 trillion. Growth in this sector remains flat. In contrast to a decline in Facebook’s brand value, its Chinese equivalent, Tencent, rose 52% to exceed Facebook, making it one of the Top 10 risers in the ranking with almost 800 million active users. Yahoo also joins the ranking after the appointment of a new CEO from Google lifted expectations and share price which drove the appreciation of brand value.

Chinese brands need more progress in innovation and internationalization: A total of 12 Chinese brands made it into this year’s Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands, with a combined brand value reaching $270 billion. Six of the top 10 Asian brands are Chinese brands, surpassing Japan and Korea, yet most of the Chinese brands on the list are state-owned enterprises. This year, there is a decrease in both the number and total brand value of Chinese brands, indicating a bottleneck in Chinese brands’ growth. Chinese brands need to not only be more technologically innovative, but also more international.

The list of Chinese brands:

The BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study is available online. It includes a ranking and analysis of the most valuable brands for key regions of the world and 13 market sectors. Download the complete BrandZ™ ranking here, including regional and category breakdowns, and in-depth insights from WPP companies. The rankings and a great deal more brand insight are also available as a free interactive mobile app for Apple and Android and as an iPad magazine.