Made In Africa: Brand Africa Announces 2014 Best Brands In Africa

The annual ranking of the most admired and most valuable brands in sub-Sahara Africa, Brand Africa 100, was announced earlier today at the Nairobi Securities Exchange, in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Established in 2011,Brand Africa 100 measures and ranks brands that consumers admire and their corresponding values. “Prior to 2011, there was no independent measure of the value and the performance of any brand in Africa, whether local or foreign. We wanted to capture and measure the value African consumers placed on brands that closely aligned with their core values and best reflected their lifestyles and aspirations,” said Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and Chairman of Brand Africa and Chairman of Brand Finance Africa.

In a list dominated by electronics (17%), beverages (14%), auto manufacturers (14%), apparel (12%) and telecommunications (10%), of the top 100 brands in Africa, 23 were African. Pan-African telecommunications giant, MTN, topped the African list as the most valuable and most admired African brand. Valued at over $5.4 billion, MTN is the only African brand valued over a billion dollars. “As African economies grow and Africans become wealthier and grow their brand building capacity, the demand for indigenous brands or non-African brands that are built on African insights will continue to grow.  It’s an appetizing opportunity for ‘Made in Africa’ brands,” said Ikalafeng.

South Africa, with 11 of the 23 African brands, remained the most dominant branding nation on the continent, accounting for 91% of the value of the brands. Kenya at 5% and Nigeria at 3% rounded off the top 3 African countries which combined, made up 99% of the value of the African brands. With the recent rebasing of both Nigeria and Kenya‘s GDP’s earlier this year, Ikalafeng said, “traditionally South African-based brands dominated the list however, we are seeing a shift with other dominant African nations beginning to assert themselves.”

The most admired regional brands were MTN (Southern Africa), Glo (West Africa), Tusker (East Africa) and Marsavco (Central Africa).  The most valuable regional brands were MTN (Southern Africa), Dangote (West Africa),Safaricom (East Africa) and Marsavco (Central Africa). The most admired African nations mentioned spontaneously by Africans were Nigeria (West Africa), Kenya (East Africa) and South Africa (Southern Africa).

Brand Africa 100: Top 10 Most Valuable African Brands including their brand value (in brackets), country and industry were:

Source: forbes.com