MTN is SA's most valuable brand

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 R43 billion, 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. While 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".