SHANGHAI–China’s explosive growth has made it home to the world’s fastest growing brands, expanding at a pace nearly 8 times faster than overall global rate, new research from Brand Finance shows.
“The country’s impressive portfolio of high-performing brands has claimed 9 spots among the top 10 brands with the largest increase in brand value over the last decade,” the report said.
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The combined brand value of Chinese brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking of the world’s most valuable brands has risen 1,100 percent increase from $111 billion in 2010 to $1,334 billion in 2020.
“This is by far faster than brand value growth recorded by brands from any other country, with – for instance – the United States seeing a 177 percent and Japan a 94 percent increase, and nearly eight times faster than the overall growth of brand value within the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking – 143 percent,” it said.
The most valuable Chinese brands are financial institutions ICBC and Ping An, which sit in the first two spots, followed by phone maker Huawei. The top end of the ranking is dominated by finance, tech, utilities and telecommunications–it’s not until the 74th spot that a clothing and sportswear brand, Anta, appears–but ecommerce giants made a strong showing.
WeChat was ranked seventh, while its parent group Tencent was tenth. Taobao ranked 13th, TMall was 15th, while B2B site Alibaba.com was 22nd, with the report noting that Alibaba.com had grown a staggering 4029 percent over last 10 years. NetEase was 30th and JD.com came in 31st, while Pinduoduo was ranked 122nd. Tik-Tok-owner Bytedance appeared for the first time on the list this year.
By geography, the key areas of Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Hong Kong contributed the most brand value to this year’s Brand Finance China 500. But Beijing remained in a league of its own with its 100 brands in the ranking reaching a cumulative brand value of $787.2 billion, equating to 42 percent of total brand value. China’s southern hub, the Greater Bay Area, is increasing its share, however.
“The number of brands in the Brand Finance China 500 2020 ranking coming from the Greater Bay Area, which includes Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau have increased from 135 brands in 2019 to 138 brands in 2020, with a total value of $532.6 billion, which accounts for more than a quarter of the total brand value in the table. The great performance of the region demonstrates the success of China’s Reform and Opening-Up policy on Shenzhen’s 40th anniversary,” the report said.