TrendMicro Edges Out ASUS to Lead Top-20 Global Taiwan Brands

The results of the "2008 Global Taiwan Brand-value Survey" were announced Sept. 30. TrendMicro, a globally famous anti-virus software brand, unseated last year's champ, ASUS, by a narrow margin of US$2 million in brand value to retake the lead among the other brands polled this year.

Reassuring news is that, of all the Taiwan-based brands who have achieved some degree of global reputation and presence, the top-four brands have generated US$1.2 billion or more in brand value, including TrendMicro, ASUS, Acer, and HTC, whose brand values have been assessed at US$1.326 billion, US$1.324 billion, US$1.265 billion, and US$1.202 billion, respectively.

The brand value survey is organized by the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), executed by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and co-organized by Business Next magazine and branding-consultancy Interbrand.

Three Newcomers

Three newcomers managed to squeeze their way into the top-20 global Taiwan brands in 2008: DANZE (home bathroom appliances), MSI (motherboards) and BIOSTAR (motherboards).

Leadtek Research Inc., a major graphic-card brand, took the Up-and-Coming Brand Award this year, with such honor bestowed upon IT firms who have yet to garner a spot among the top-20, but are recognized for devoting significant effort to brand building and identified as having promising potential.

Also notable is that, Taiwan being the world leader in motherboards and graphic-cards, GIGABYTE, a major motherboard and graphic-card maker who has fared remarkably in recent years, was not rated as a top-20 brand this year, mainly because the revenue generated by the private brand under its recently spun-off subsidiary was not accounted for. Had its consolidated revenue and profitability been figured into the equation, GIGABYTE would have shown improved performance as a brand relative to 2007.

The 20 firms that won the top-20 brand value spots this year include: 1. TrendMicro, 2. ASUS, 3. Acer, 4. HTC, 5. Master Kong, 6. Maxxis, 7. D-LINK, 8. ZYXEL, 9. SYNNEX, 10. ADVANTECH, 11. GIANT, 12. JOHNSON, 13. TRANSCEND, 14. UNI-PRESIDENT, 15. MERIDA, 16. DANZE, 17. GENIUS, 18. DEPO, 19. MSI, and 20. BIOSTAR.

Too Many for Top-10

With increasingly more brand-conscious firms in Taiwan building bigger presence globally, TAITRA decided to honor the top-20 brands instead of the mere ten as in 2007.

The top-20 global Taiwan brands achieved a combined value, according to TAITRA, of US$9.141 billion, exceeding US$9 billion for the first time. Moreover, the top-10 global Taiwan brands generated some US$7.537 billion in value, reflecting the intrepidness of Taiwan-based enterprises to steadily build brand appeal to expand markets even during a global economic recession.

The winner of this year's Up-and-Coming Brand award, LEADTEK, has shown commendable performance in Europe; while the bicycle manufacturer MERIDA, deserving credit, has turned in 70%-plus growths in brand value in the past two years, which seems to mirror its effective strategy to meet eco-conscious demands in an era where energy-saving and carbon-reduction continue to be hot issues that are expected to continue to put the major bike maker on the watch list of promising performers, TAITRA said.

Increasingly Mature

Referring to this year's top-20 list, TAITRA said that the global Taiwan brands are clearly becoming increasingly mature, with the top-five brands showing world-class competitiveness that rival international counterparts. Interbrand, in charge of assessing brand values, also praised that Taiwan-based enterprises now, besides developing technologically-innovative products, wield increasing flexibility in branding, such as paying more attention to communication and interaction with consumers, and timely make use of market trends as sports marketing, carbon-reduction issue etc. to further enhance brand value.

Since 2003, the Top-20 Global Taiwan Brand-value survey has been conducted for six consecutive years. Interbrand adopts the same system used by Business Week, the renowned American magazine, to quantitatively-via using corporate financial analysis-and qualitatively-via brand positioning-to assess substantially the brand value of globalized Taiwan-based brands, with such evaluations showing such brands' international competitiveness.

2008 Top-20 Global Taiwan Brands
Rank 2008 (2007)	Brand	Company	Brand Value (US$ Million)	Brand Value (NT$ Million)
1??(2)	TRENDMICRO	?Trend Micro Inc.	13.26	417.70
2 (1)	ASUS	Asustek Computer Inc.	13.24	416.83
3 (3)	ACER	Acer Inc.	12.65	398.35
4 (4 )	HTC	HTC Corp.	12.02	378.58
5 (5)	MASTER KONG	Tingyi Holding Corp.	7.93	249.60
6 (8)	MAXXIS	Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co., Ltd.	3.46	109.05
7 (6)	D-LINK	D-LINK Corp.	3.44	108.21
8 (7)	ZYXEL	Zyxel Communication Corp.	3.34	105.32
9 (11)	SYNNEX	Synnex Technology Int'l Corp.	3.04	95.86
10 (13)	ADVANTECH	Advantech Co., Ltd.	2.99	94.06
11 (12)	GIANT	Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd.	2.82	88.93
12 ( 9)	JOHNSON	Johnson health tech. Co., Ltd.	2.60	81.90
13 (16)	Transcend	Transcend Information, Inc.	2.44	76.77
14 (15)	UNI-PRESIDENT	Uni-President Enterprises Corp.	2.00	62.96
15 (18)	Merida	Merida Industry Co., Ltd.,	1.85	58.29
16 (－)	DANZE	Globe Union Industrial Corp.	1.60	50.25
17 (19)	Genius	Kye Systems Corp.	1.14	35.89
18 (20)	Depo	Depo Auto Parts Ind. Co., Ltd.,	0.63	19.80
19 (－)	MSI	Micro-Star Int'l Co., Ltd.	0.50	15.85
20 (－)	BIOSTAR	Biostar Microtech Int'L Corp.	0.46	14.49
Source: TAITRA.