Revelations by the Brand Finance Africa 150 2020 Annual report indicate that COVID-19 has cost Africa’s brands $6.3 billion in brand value. This is based on an assessment of the enterprise value of brands across sectors in 2020.
What’s in a name?
Good brand names create a financial value metric known as brand value. This refers to the worth of a brand in financial terms. In simple terms, how much would someone else pay for the brand. The value of a brand is determined by the earnings attributable to the performance of a brand and how much income the brand owner would receive by licensing the brand on to the market.
Stronger brands are cross-cutting and usually operate across many markets with success. They are determined by the performance measured against competitors.
A good brand translates to more profitable operations.
Who is Brand Finance?
Brand Finance is a brand valuation consultancy operating in 20 countries in the world. It values more than 5000 of the world’s brands and prepares reports on rankings according to value and strength.
Top Brands in Africa
MTN was named Africa’s top brand. Africa’s top mobile brand has achieved subscriber base expansion in the region of 250 million across 23 countries in Africa.
Dominating the top ten brands in Africa are South African brands. Other countries with top recognition on the brand value charts are Nigeria and Morocco.
Top ten most valuable brands Africa 2020
| Company | Sector |
| MTN | Telecoms |
| Vodacom | Telecoms |
| FNB | Banking |
| ABSA | Banking |
| Old Mutual | Financial Services |
| Standard Bank | Banking |
| Sasol | Oil and Gas |
| Nedbank | Banking |
| Investec | Financial Services |
| Woolworths | Retail |
Brands within the telecoms, banking, and insurance sectors emerged the most valuable.
Kenyan beer brand Senator Lager was named the fastest growing brand in Africa. Brewed by East African Breweries Limited (EABL), the beer brand was established in Kenya by alcohol giant Diageo in 2012. Senator Larger’s brand value increased by 88%.
Vodacom was found to be the strongest brand in Africa in terms of marketing investment, customer familiarity, staff satisfaction, and corporate reputation.
Vodacom was said to be ‘is currently working with the nation’s health department to send COVID-19 alerts to its 44 million customers. Furthermore, the brand is providing subscribers with free access to premium health and education websites.’ further cementing brand recognition.
Outside Africa
African brands were a no show in the global 500 rankings of world brands dominated by Amazon. The absence of Africa among the world’s brands can be attributable to the disjointed nature of trade and the lack of pan African brand cohesion
Declan Ahern the Valuation Director of Brand Finance London said “No truly Pan-African brands exist, with even the highest-performing brands in the ranking often only operating out of their home countries and therefore finding themselves a complete unknown across the continent and globally. It is no surprise that South Africa is by far the most represented economy in the ranking, with 87 brands featuring, which account for 76% of the total brand value.”
