China climbs global brands ladder

Asia - China Mobile has seen an increase of 39% in brand value and is today valued at US$57.2 billion, according to the BrandZ Top 100 Brands Ranking 2008 by Millward Brown.

The mobile company remains on the brand equity ranking in fifth place from last year, after debuting in fourth place the year before.

Three other Chinese brands have also made it to this year's top 100 list - Bank of China, China Construction Bank and ICBC. The combined value the four Chinese brands have increased by 51% to US$124 billion.

Also from Asia, seven brands from Japan, Korea and Hong Kong have clinched spots in the global brands list; including Samsung, Nissan and HSBC.

Google grabs top spot as the number one global brand, with a brand value of US$86.1 billion, followed by General Electric (GE) and Microsoft with US$71.4 and US$70.9 billion respectively.

The combined value of all the brands in the BrandZ Top 100 increased by 21% from US$1.6 trillion in 2007 to US$1.94 trillion in 2008, more than doubling the increase experienced the previous year.

The technology sector, which includes mobile operators, accounted for 28 out of the 100 top brands, outperforming all the other categories in this year's ranking with a brand value growth of US$187.5 billion - more than half of the top 100's total increase.

"This year's brand ranking demonstrates the importance of investing in brands, especially in times of market turmoil. Strong brands generate superior returns and protect businesses from risk," Joanna Seddon, CEO of Millward Brown Optimor, said. "Our data shows that strong brands continue to outperform weak ones in terms of market share and share price during recessions."

Derived from WPP's BrandZ database, the BrandZ study has interviewed over one million consumers globally and covers 50,000 brands worldwide. The BrandZ Ranking is a study that covers both business and consumer brands and includes predictive metrics of future brand performance. Market performance metrics and financial data were obtained from Datamonitor and Bloomberg respectively.