Africa Science News

Orange ranked among 100 Most Valuable Global Brands

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Written by Erick Akasa

The Orange brand, under which France Telecom affiliates worldwide- including Telkom Kenya - market their products and services, has been ranked at position 36 among the Top 100 most valuable brands globally according to Millward Brown’s  “2011 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” report.

The report, regarded as the most comprehensive annual ranking of brand value and developed by Millward Brown Optimor, ranks and analyzes the world’s leading brands and the economic and competitive dynamics that influence value fluctuations.

It is dominated by tech and IT firms, with most of the top 5 slots going to tech firms -Apple coming in at position one; Google second; IBM third while Microsoft comes in at position five.

Other tech firms in the list include Vodafone (12); Amazon.com (14); Hewlett Packard (hp) at 18; Oracle at 22; SAP at 23 with Blackberry coming in at 25 while Cisco makes it to the top 50 list at position 44.

“Compared with an overall improvement of 13 percent in the world’s equity markets during 2010, the best brands grew their value 30 percent faster, registering 17 percent increase since last year. As business leaders, it is time to embrace brand stewardship as a critical competency for building long-term financial value. Brand focus is no longer simply the purview of brand managers, but the stuff that great CMOs, CFOs and CEOs are made of,” notes Eileen Campbell, lead author of the report.

In terms of revenues, the combined value of the Top 100 brands is US $ 2.4 trillion, which is more than the GDP of Great Britain, with Apple’s brand value alone being the equivalent of Peru’s GDP.

The report states that regardless of category, business sector or geography, brands are becoming increasingly important while Tablet computing drove value growth not just for Apple, but also for the providers who support yet another networked device.

Another observation is that brands from emerging markets are becoming increasingly present in our Top 100 while luxury goods so loved by consumers in those markets are also gaining prominence.

“Brands don’t reach these vaunted levels without the support of great people, masterful planning and world-class execution. More than just a scorecard, these rankings are a powerful measure of an organization’s ability to create real and lasting value for shareholders,” states Ms Campbell.

In the report, brands are ranked and their performances analyzed in 13 product sectors: apparel, beer, cars, fast food, financial institutions, insurance, luxury, oil and gas, personal care, retail, soft drinks, technology and telecom providers.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations for building great brands and an in-depth explanation of the BrandZ valuation methodology.

The Millward Brown brands report follows a recent Transparency International (TI) report which ranked Orange as eighth most transparent company worldwide among 105 large multinationals.

Transparency International is a global NGO that fights government-related corruption and its report ranked Orange as eighth most transparent company in terms of corporate communication, with the brand emerging first in France.

As part of the survey, TI gave the 105 largest multinationals ratings of 0 to 10, based on the information they offer investors and the public on their anti-corruption programmes, their organisations and their financial activities in the countries where they operate.

Norwegian oil giant Statoil is the world’s most transparent company, followed by Anglo-Australian mining giants Rio Tinto (2^nd) and BHP Biliton (3^rd), and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal (4^th). The second telecom operator, after Orange, is Vodafone – in 14^th position.

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