WhatsApp holds top spot in Malaysia for YouGov's brand perception study

WhatsApp has again topped YouGov BrandIndex’s annual brand health rankings for Malaysia. In a list featuring a large number of global brands, the messenger service reigns supreme for the second year in a row.It is firmly ahead of search giant Google in second, social media titan Facebook in third, and online retailer Lazada in fourth position. Financial services firm Maybank is in fifth, just ahead of streaming service YouTube in sixth.The list is rounded out by cleaning product Dettol (seventh), vehicle manufacturer Honda (eighth), automotive manufacturer Toyota (ninth) and restaurant chain McDonald’s (tenth).The rankings are based on YouGov BrandIndex’s Index score, which measures overall brand health. The score takes into account consumers’ perception of a brand’s overall quality, value, impression, reputation, satisfaction and whether consumers would recommend the brand to others.YouGov also analysed who has seen the greatest improvement in brand health over the past year. E-commerce platform Shopee has seen by far the biggest advance, seeing its score rise by +16.1 points. This is comfortably ahead of device manufacturer Huawei, which is in second place with an increase of +10.5. McDonald’s is in third, having seen its score rise by +6.7 over the last year. The top five is completed by social media platform Instagram and car maker Perodua (both +6.6).Globally, Google tops the annual global brand health rankings, followed by YouTube. Samsung jumps one place from last year, climbing to third position as does messenger service WhatsApp, which rises to fourth. However, WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, falls two places to fifth. While Amazon remains sixth on the list, IKEA and Lego enter the rankings at number seven and ten, respectively.