Top 10 brands in Singapore unveiled

A recently launched report by Brand Finance Asia Pacific has come up with a shortlist on Singapore’s top 100 brands, with DBS clinching the top spot once more.The annual report pits Singapore brands against one another according to the brand values available.Here are the top ten brands which made the cut along with their brand values:DBS Group Holdings (US$5.31billion)OCBC Bank (US$3.29billion)United Overseas Banks (US$2.76billion)Singapore Airlines (US$2.55billion)Wilmar International (US$2.47billion)Singtel (US$2.42billion)Great Eastern Holdings (US$1.31billion)Keppel Corporation (US$1.06billion)Frasers Centrepoint (US$1.01billion)Sembcorp Industries (US$1.01billion)While DBS retained the top spot, OCBC rose to second place from fourth last year. Meanwhile UOB rose to third place from five last year. This resulted in Singapore Airlines, a much-loved brand which came in second last year, falling to fourth place in this year’s rankings and Wilmar to fifth, previously being third.According to additional figures from Brand Finance, the top one hundred brands are valued at around US$41billion, which is up US$1.57billion from last year. The top 10 in total are valued at US$23.1billion in terms of brand value. The brand value accorded to each brand is a summary of its financial strength.Samir Dixit, managing director at Brand Finance Asia Pacific said in a statement to Marketing:The drop in Singapore Airline’s rankings does not show that it has slipped as a brand – but rather it shows that the rest have been moving up the ranks quickly.According to Dixit, this is the first time banks have made the top three in the rankings in the last nine years of publishing the report.“Although the financial service sector is not a leading category for brand value dominance, Singapore has defied this trend, indicating both the importance of the banking sector in the region as well as the lack of concentrated brand building-efforts by other brands,”he said.To Dixit, marketing has a large role to play in the branding strategy as it requires all the information about the brand, the type of products they carry as well as how it communicates this to consumers. He said:Marketing 'ingredients’ are what builds brand equity; which shows how well brands are engaging and communicating with customers.However, from a global standpoint, Singapore brands still have a long way to go when compared with other brands in the world, said Dixit. In the Global 500 report launched in February, while DBS came out top in Singapore, it ranked 268 globally, OCBC Bank made it at 491 in its first foray into the rankings.Top 10 brands listed in the global report include Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, China Mobile and Wells Fargo.“This begs the question on whether or not Singapore brands are looking to compete globally to begin with?” Dixit said.Findings from the Brand Finance Top 100 Singapore Brands Report 2016 were derived from the value calculation of the brands in its league tables. This involves estimating the likely future sales that are attributable to a brand and calculating a royalty rate that would be charged for the use of the brand, i.e. what the owner would have to pay for the use of the brand if it were not already owned.