MTN has achieved
yet another impressive feat, emerging as South Africa’s most valuable brand in
this year’s BrandFinance Most Valuable Brands Survey, for a second consecutive
year.
Launched in 2012,
the BrandFinance South Africa’s 50 Most Valuable Brands survey measures the
financial brand value of South African companies that operate both within and
outside of South Africa.
“MTN is pleased
with this honour. We owe the success and growth of our brand to the continued
loyalty of our customers, the attractiveness of our innovative products and
services and our responsiveness to the needs of our communities. In the past 19
years, our customers have worked with us to build up the MTN brand from a South
African brand to one that resonates with nearly 200 million customers in 22
countries today,” says Jennifer Forrester, Executive for MTN Group Marketing.
According to the
BrandFinance report, at R43bn, the AAA-rated MTN brand is more than twice as
valuable as its closest South African competitor.
The report states
that, with a solid financial performance in 2012, MTN’s position as Most
Valuable South African Brand is safe from any real threat. “The brand seems
perfectly poised to go from strength to strength as its footprint increases
year-on-year over the continent and into the Middle East.”
“Our survey shows
the combined value of South Africa’s 50 Most Valuable Brands has increased +8%
from 2012 to R292 billion. Whilst the technology sector currently produces the
most valuable brands globally, South Africa’s most valuable sectors are
telecoms and banking. It’s a confirmation that connectivity remains a priority
on the African continent, and that telcos such as MTN will remain dominant,” says
Ollie Schmitz, Managing Director, BrandFinance South Africa.
The BrandFinance
listing follows another significant achievement for the MTN brand earlier this
year. In May, MTN again topped the list as the only African brand on the
Millward-Brown BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands survey for 2013. MTN debuted at
position 88 in the survey last year, and in 2013, MTN moved up an impressive
nine places to position 79, with an overall increase in brand value of 23%.
BrandFinance Top 50
Most Valuable Brands account for almost R300 billion – a sizable share of the
400 listed companies on the R9 trillion combined market cap JSE.
“What these results
show – and affirm – is that Africa’s premier Brand Building nation, South
Africa, continues to inspire with the successes and pace that MTN, Africa’s
most valuable global brand, is setting for peer brands and businesses. The
survey in many ways sets the benchmark not just for the top 50, but a baseline
for the rest to guide their growth and development,” says Thebe Ikalafeng, Chairman,
BrandFinance Africa Founder, Brand Africa and Brand Leadership Group.
MTN is the leading
operator in the majority of its markets, and places great emphasis on building
brand affinity through customer-centricity and partnering with communities where
the company operates.
“We strive to stay
relevant in the lives of the our customers, whether by sponsoring events and
activities that are close to their hearts, innovating to diversify our offering
of products and services to meet their changing needs or addressing
socio-economic challenges in the communities in which we operate, through our
Corporate Social Investment initiatives,” adds Forrester.
This approach has
also followed through in the company’s new vision ‘to lead the delivery of a
bold new Digital World to our customers, as well as the mission, ‘to
make our customers’ lives a whole lot brighter’.
ENDS
- Issued by MTN Group Corporate Affairs
Brand Finance is an independent global business focused on advising strongly branded organisations on how to maximize value through the effective management of their brands and intangible assets. Since it was founded in 1996, Brand Finance has performed thousands of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuations worth trillions of dollars. Brand Finance is headquartered in London and has a network of international offices in Amsterdam, Bangalore, Barcelona, Cape Town, Colombo, Dubai, Durban, Geneva, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Singapore, Toronto and Zagreb.www.brandfinance.com
About the MTN
Group
Launched in
1994, the MTN Group is a leading emerging market operator, connecting
subscribers in 22 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The MTN Group
is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in South Africa under the share code:
“MTN.” As of 30 April 2013, MTN recorded 197.4 million subscribers
across its operations in Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire,
Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Iran, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic
of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, South Sudan,
Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. Visit. Visit us at www.mtn.com , www.mtnbusiness.com , www.mtnmmo.com and for our football fans www.mtnfootball.com
