By Sabin Iqbal , Group Editor, TECHx Media
Technology has emerged as the most valuable sector in the latest Brand Finance Global 500 Ranking 2022 with a cumulative brand value of $1.3 trillion.
The sector is undoubtedly helped by the pandemic and its ripple effect in business and the increasing popularity of remote working patterns or work from home methods.
Though there are 50 tech brands featuring in the latest ranking, more than 50 percent of the total brand value has been accounted for by Apple ($355b), Microsoft ($184.2b) and Samsung Group ($107.3b).
Apple has held on to the world’s ‘most valuable brand’ title with a record valuation of over $355 billion, followed by Amazon and Google.
Spurred by a 29 percent growth despite US sanctions, Huawei has reclaimed its place in top 10 with a revenue of $71.2 billion. Though the brand’s smartphone business was affected by US sanctions over alleged security issues, the Chinese firm stepped up its investment in both domestic tech companies and R&D as well as turning its focus to cloud services.
The rise of gaming, cryptocurrency mining, and artificial intelligence, along with the global chip supply shortage, has helped semiconductor brands, AMD ($6b) and Nvidia ($16b), emerge as two of the five fastest-growing brands. Both brands have recorded a healthy surge in their revenue.
With global restrictions in place due to the pandemic, digital entertainment, social media and streaming services have seen a fillip in their business and subsequent brand evaluation. The tech-based media landscape is fast evolving into a high-value global business sector.
In a testimony to how media consumption is changing in a pandemic-ravaged world, TikTok has become the world’s ‘fastest growing brand’, according the ranking. With a whopping 215 percent growth from $18.7b in 2021 to $59b this year, the entertainment app has secured 18th spot in the world’s top 500 most valuable brands—the highest-rated new entry in the list.
TikTok’s success is not just due to its light and entertaining content but the fact that the app has acted as a creative outlet for people who are confined to their homes, and how it has helped them connect with each other during lockdown. The brand, which crossed one billion-user mark in 2021 and was the most dowloaded app in Google Play and App Store, has also looked beyond the Gen Z, with sponsorship of UEFA-Euro 2020 tournaments.
The other two fastest-growing media brands are social media app Snapchat ($6.6b) and South Korean internet brand Kakao ($4.7b). Other notable performers from the media sector include Disney ($57b), Netflix ($29.4b),
YouTube ($23.9b), and Spotify ($6.3b).
Chinese social media app, WeChat, has retained its position as the world’s ‘strongest brand’ with a Brand Strength Index score of 93.3 out of 100 and AAA+ rating. According to Brand Finance, WeChat scored higher over other brands through its people-centric features. WeChat allows its customers to message, video call, order food, and shop. It also played an integral part in the country’s fight against COVID-19, with more than 700 million people using its services to book vaccinations and tests.
Four out of the top five strongest brands come from the media sector. Climbing from 39th to 3rd with an impressive BSI score of 93.3, Google catches up with WeChat at the top, followed closely by its Alphabet stablemate YouTube, which rose from 27th to 4th with a BSI score of 93.2. South Korean brand Naver is also in the top 5, jumping a remarkable 99 places to 5th with a BSI score of 92.5.
Brand Finance determines the relative strength of brands through a balanced scorecard of metrics evaluating marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance. Certified by ISO 20671, Brand Finance’s assessment of stakeholder equity incorporates original market research data from around 100,000 respondents in over 35 countries and across nearly 30 sectors.
