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Share Of African Brands Declines In New Survey Of Africa’s 100 Best Brands

Share Of African Brands Declines In New Survey Of Africa’s 100 Best Brands

The share of African brands declined in the newly released 2016-2017 annual Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands – an annual survey and valuation of the Top 100 brands in Africa, according to a GeoPoll press release.

Proof that bad news isn’t always bad for business, Samsung took the No. 1 spot as the Most Admired Brand in Africa despite its recent crisis with its exploding Galaxy Note 7 model, which never launched in Africa.

Samsung displaced South African mobile service provider MTN as Most Admired Brand in Africa. MTN has led in this category for years. However, MTN retained its ranking as the Most Admired African Brand despite challenges — particularly in Nigeria, where it faced a multi-billion dollar fine for violating regulations.

This may have tarnished the image of Africa’s leading brand, according to a press release by U.S.-based mobile market research firm GeoPoll.

GeoPoll used text messaging technology to identify the most admired brands in Africa in what it says is a representative sample of African consumers in 19 African countries. Consumers themselves generated the list of 100 most admired brands, according to Geopoll. These countries collectively represent an estimated 74 percent of Africa’s population, according to a prepared statement.

GeoPoll, which has offices in Denver, Washington, D.C. and Nairobi, partnered with London-based market research firm Kantar TNS and Brand Finance Africa to find Africa’s best 100 brands.

Kantar collated and analysed data to create a weighted consumer-admiration score that reduced over 11,000 brand mentions to the Top 100 Most Admired Brands in Africa.

Hoping to inspire a brand-led African renaissance, South Africa-based Brand Africa launched in 2010 following the FIFA World Cup. Brand Africa promotes a positive image of Africa, celebrating its diversity and driving its competitiveness. It sees itself as a brand-led movement which recognizes that in the 21st century, brands are “an asset and a vector of image, reputation and competitiveness of nations.”

MTN dropped from No. 1 spot to No. 9 overall, but retained its top ranking as Most Admired African Brand.

African brands’ share among most admired brands dropped from 23 percent to 16 percent.

Non-African brands have strengthened their positions in Africa, growing their share of the Top 100 Admired brands from 77 percent in 2014-205 to 84 percent in 2016-207. In a country-by-country review, non-African brands ranked the Top 3 brands in every market, except in Nigeria (with Glo at No. 3), Kenya (with Safaricom/Mpesa No. 2 and Tusker No. 3) and Tanzania (with Azam No. 2).

Samsung ranked the No. 1 brand in eight of the 19 countries polled. Nike ranked No. 1 in four countries, Coke in three countries, Adidas in three countries and Airtel in one country. Non-African brands represent a 99.25-percent share of the value of the Top 100 Valuable brands in Africa.

The U.S. led all countries with 25 out of 100 most admired brands. Of the Top 100, 42 came from Europe. South Africa led Africa with six out of the 100 most admired brands.
The single biggest gain for a brand was Lacoste (up 52). Levi’s lost the most ground (down 68).

Most valuable brands in Africa

African brands represent less than 1 percvent of the share of the value of the Top 100, according to Geopoll.

Google, valued at $109 billion, displaced Apple to become the No. 1 Most Valuable Brand in Africa 100.

MTN, valued at $2.975 million, is the Most Valuable African brand.

Among the Top 100 Most Admired Brands in Africa, Europe led all regions with 42 out of 100, followed by North America (25 out of 100), Asia (17 out of 100) and Africa (16 out of 100). The U.S. was the top country of origin with 25 out of 100, followed by the U.K. (8 out of 100), Japan (6 out of 100), Germany (6 out of 100), South Africa (6 out of 100), France (5 out of 100) and China (5 out of 100), Italy (4 out of 100), Nigeria (3 out of 100), Ireland (3 out of 100), Netherlands (3 out of 100) and Spain (3 out of 100).

Source: GeoPoll

“It is a great concern that the share of African brands is so low and even declining,” said Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman of Brand Africa and chairman of Brand Finance Africa, in a prepared statement. “African entrepreneurs ought to know their consumers better than anyone. It is a wake-up call for African governments to create enabling environments to support these entrepreneurs to build Made-in-Africa brands which in turn will enable the governments to fund and drive their own development agenda.”

Here are a few more notable results from the surveys about brands in Africa:

The Top 100 Admired brands are distributed among 11 categories across apparel (19 percent), consumers (13 percent), electronics (13 percent), telecommunications (12 percent), auto manufacturers (11 percent), alcoholic beverages (10 percent), food (6 percent), non-alcoholic beverages (5 percent), media (4 percent), sports and fitness (4 percent),retail (2 percent) and cosmetics (1 percent).

In the 2016-2017 survey period, 31 new brands entered the Top 100 in compared to 34 between 2014-2015. These include South Africa’s Shoprite and Pick n Pay, Moroccos’s Marwa, Ethiopia’s Anbessa Shoes and Nigeria’s Lady Care.

Brand Africa also conducted a separate parallel survey to determine the Most Admired Brands in Media and the Most Admired Brands in Financial Services. In the financial services category, Nigeria’s GTB Bank led the overall rankings in Africa. Barclays retained its position as the No. 1 non-African financial services brand. In the media category, BBC and DSTV retained their positions as the top non-African and African media brands respectively.

GeoPoll’s data-collection method through mobile surveys demonstrates the power and reach of mobile technology in its delivery of real-time, actionable data, said Steve Gutterman, CEO of GeoPoll.

Read more about GeoPoll here.