Africa has been beaming with rapid growth and indeed a number of business brands have come through to compete on the global stage. Jonathan Adengo looks at some of Africa’s most admired and valued brands.
Africa is fast pacing and the pacing has been frenzied for decades – albeit because of the continent’s young population.
Indeed the continent is sharing in the pomp that has seen 30 years of brand building with key giants such as MTN Group and DStv, among others competing in the global space.
This is a shared testament, which last week at the fourth annual Brand Africa 100 rankings, tapped the Shs16.4 trillion ($4.6b) MTN Group as Africa’s most admired and valued brand on the continent.
The South African telecom is the world’s 15th-largest mobile service provider by subscriber numbers with a presence in 22 African and Middle East markets.
The scope of coverage sampled people in 22 countries with the main function of finding out which brand participants most valued and admired.
Uganda was ably represented by Mukwano Group, which is one of East Africa’s largest household goods manufacturers.
The company stood among the continent’s giants beating off competition from a horde of Nigerian companies to become the fifth most admired brand on the African continent.
Nigeria, as always, fought through the ranks posting five companies among the most valued brands.
Nigerian brands enjoy an extremely large internal market depending on a population of more than 140 million people, which acts as the primary consumers of products produced from within the country.
Mobile telecommunications operator, Globacom (in second position), Dangote, a manufacturing conglomerate owned by Africa’s richest man, Ariko Dangote (in third), Zenith Bank (in seventh), Peak Milk (eighth), Star Beer (tenth) all from Nigeria completed the list of 10 most valuable companies on the continent.
Tusker, Kenya’s beer brand (in fourth position), Simu TV from Tanzania (sixth position), Sasco from South Africa (in ninth position) were among the giants viewed as the most admired brands.
Africa, which has been ranked as one of the fastest growing economies across the globe, continues to present tests to companies amid heavy currency depreciations, among other challenges.
The rankings, first launched in 2011, were last held in Nairobi-Kenya in 2014 in partnership with the Kenya Securities Exchange. In 2013 they were held in New York in partnership with African Business on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Brand Africa 100 is a proprietary approach developed by Brand Leadership Group in partnership with Brand Finance Plc, the world’s leading independent valuation consultancy, TNS, a globally respected consumer knowledge and information company and GeoPoll, the leading mobile survey platform with a database of nearly 200 million users in emerging markets.
