TOP 50 BRANDS France Telecom’s decision to adopt the
Orange monicker in its domestic market shows how far the brand has developed since it launched in the UK in 1994 as a youth-focused consumer mobile product. “In [February] 2012 the [French] fixed- line business will become Orange also,” says Legrix de la Salle, although she insists the transition will be “a non- event”, since the Orange brand is already widely used and known. Furthermore, there have been reports
that the group will abandon the France Telecom name at a corporate level as well. “The decision has not been taken to change the name of the group...[but] it’s possible,” Legrix de la Salle says.
Building BRICs The biggest changes in terms of brand value and position in the ranking table came form some of the worlds fastest- growing telecoms markets. China Mobile shed $1.4 billion from its
brand value in the past 12 months, pushing it down to fifth place. Meanwhile, rival China Unicom saw its brand value grow by 25%, although it remained at less than half that of China Mobile. “China Unicom’s jump in brand value
relates to its dominance in the fast-grow- ing Chinese smartphone market,” says Bird, noting that Unicom offers the sought-after iPhone and a number of low- cost own-brand smartphones. “China Mobile will have to react and improve its brand positioning and product offering in order to stop losing share,” he says. Although it added $1.6 billion to its
brand value, China Unicom rose just three places up the main table. And the country’s third operator, China Telecom, slipped by one place, despite slightly growing its brand value to $7.36 billion. The big winner in ranking terms was
Russia’s Rostelecom, which tops the ‘risers’ table having leapt into the top 30 from 163rd place in 2011. “In November 2011 Rostelecom switched to a portfolio of products and tariffs, with the aim of leveraging a creative platform to promote a single brand,” says Bird. “This has led its brand value to shoot up the table, increasing by a factor of 13.” Rostelecom’s plan will see it initially
co-brand with its regional mobile subsid- iaries. Then, from the second half of 2012,
February 2012
www.totaltele.com
TOP 10 HANDSET MAKERS Rank Brand
▲ 1 Apple
▲ 2 Samsung ▼ 3 Nokia ▲ 4 HTC
n 5 BlackBerry 6 LG
Brand Value Brand Rating Enterprise Brand Value / Rank Brand Value 2012 (US$m) 2012
27,412 AAA+ 135,211 10,754
AAA- 31,748 34%
5,128 AA 14,288 36% 4,106 AA 17,136 24% 3,009
AA- 7,706 2,474 A+ 7,035
7 Huawei 2,035 A+ n/a n 8 Sony Ericsson * 1,814 ▼ 9 Motorola ▼ 10 ZTE*
1,328
AA- AA-
1,219 A+ *The 2011 Brand Value and Enterprise Value have been restated
TOP 5 HARDWARE VENDORS Rank Brand
1 2 3 4 5
Cisco Ericsson
Alcatel-Lucent Qualcomm
5,895 5,648
2 6,929 4
5,022
39% 35% n/a
31% 24%
1 9,658 6 2,937 5
Value Enterprise Value (%) 2011 2011 (US$m) 20%
3,589 n/a n/a
7 3
1,479 5,585
2,719 45% 8 520 Source: Brand Finance
Brand Value Brand Rating Enterprise Brand Value / Brand Value 2012 (US$m) 2012
12,865 6,735 3,349
Nokia Siemens Networks 2,223
AAA- AA- AA-
27,432 8,654
6,209
22% 25% 39%
2,801 AA 79,941 4% AA-
36%
11,667 5,504 3,461 2,632 3,664
Value Enterprise Value (%) 2011 (US$m) 59,435
Source: Brand Finance
Any direct benefi t of a single brand on customer acquisition and retention is not always clear cut
it will phase out the regional brands in favour of the Rostelecom brand alone. America Movil’s Claro comes in third
in the ‘risers’ table, having added 20 places and $2.3 billion to its brand value in the past year. The company is domiciled in Mexico but its plans for Brazil have caught the eye of the analysts; it announced in December that it will spend BRL3.5 billion (almost US$2 billion) on infrastructure in Brazil in 2012, with a key focus on expand- ing its HSPA+ coverage to all subscribers. “These initiatives directly impact the
brand, positioning Claro as an innovative and dynamic provider,” Bird says. “Improvement to network coverage, call quality and service features also have a positive impact on customer experience and brand perception.” The fact that such recent announce-
ments from Claro and Rostelecom impacted so heavily on their score high- lights the forward-looking nature of the Brand Finance rankings. “There is a strong focus on what is going to happen in the future...[however], we are using data available today, and our judgements
are informed by what has happened in the past,” Bird explains. For more infor- mation on how the ranking tables were compiled, see the company’s methodol- ogy on p.14. Also among the risers is India’s airtel,
the only operator from the subcontinent to make an appearance in the top 50. Airtel, owned by Bharti, rose by 10 places and added over $1.5 billion to its brand ranking in a year that saw it expand its global presence and remain the leader in the domestic mobile market. Bharti intro- duced the airtel brand to Africa in November 2010 and a year later revealed that its customer base in the continent had passed the 50 million mark. Its Indian subscriber base numbered 175 million at the same date.
Pocket power Some of the strongest brands in the tele- coms space are those the consumer carries in his pocket: they belong to the mobile handset makers. Apple’s brand value of $27.41 billion, up from $6.93 billion a year ago, exceeds that
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