Taiwan's Top 20 International Brands for 2012 Valued at Over NT$370 B.
2012/11/20 | By Steve ChuangTaiwan's top 20 international brands have lost a bit of their value in 2012, according to “The Best Taiwanese Brands 2012” survey as reported by the Interbrand Corp., a brand consulting firm based in the U.K. The survey indicates that the top 20 are worth NT$370.52 billion this year, down 2.7% from 2011. ,
The annual survey was initiated a decade ago by the Bureau of Foreign Trade, a unit of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), and is conducted by the semi-governmental Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) with assistance from Interbrand.
The MOEA has been helping Taiwanese companies develop global brands for years,. The goal was to elevate the total value of the island's top 5 and top 20 brands to US$1 billion and US$10 billion, respectively, with the top two brands each being worth at least US$1.5 billion. That goal was achieved in 2011.
Value Drops for Top 2 Brands
The survey shows that the top two brands this year are HTC and Acer, in that order, the same as 2011. However, their values were down 23% and 11.97%, respectively, to US$2.753 billion and US$1.676 billion; a year ago, the respective values were NT$3.605 billion and NT$1.940 billion.
HTC has been bested in the smartphone market's latest round of competition by Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics, and its revenue, sales volume, global market share, EPS (earnings per share), and stock price are all down as a result. This has caused the firm's brand value to shrink.
Other problems also loom for the Taiwan company. Apple has aggressively attacked it with patent-infringement lawsuits in the U.S., and Nokia recently expressed the intention of charging HTC with copying the exterior design of Nokia's Lumia 920 in its X8 and S8 Windows 8 smartphones. HTC has strongly denied the charge, but if it is actually filed it will inevitably rub salt in HTC's wounds.
Market observers believe that HTC will very likely be squeezed out of the list of the world's top 100 brands this year, after taking the 98th place in 2011.
Acer, for its part, has been troubled by the rise of Apple in the global market with its Macbook family, and especially the iPad, which has fueled the trend of tablet PCs capturing market share from laptops. In addition, Acer's sales have shrunk in Europe following distributor inventory problems and an administrative reshuffle which led to the resignation of Gianfranco Lanci as CEO.
Asus, the computer brand owned by Asustek Computer Inc., kept its No. 3 position among the top 20 brands this year. In contrast to the two top brands, Asus saw its value rise 1.5% to US$1.662 billion, narrowing the gap between itself and Acer. The rise in value was due partly to hot sales of the Transformer family of tablet PCs and the Nexus 7, jointly developed with Google, and partly to effective marketing strategies in emerging countries such as Indonesia (where it ranked second in PC sales in the second quarter of this year, according to a report issued by the International Data Corp. in September).
Emergence of Food and Food-service Brands
Interbrand's survey shows a growing diversity in Taiwan's major brands, led mainly by the emergence of food and food-service brands.
Five food and food service suppliers are ranked among Taiwan's top 20 brands this year: Master Kong, Want-Want, 85°C, Uni-president, and WOWPRIME. All show a strong growth in brand value from 2011 to 2012.
Master Kong, a brand of instant noodles and beverages produced by the Tingyi Holding Corp., and Want-Want, a food brand of Want Want Holdings Ltd., remain No. 5 and No. 6, respectively, in this year's survey. Their brand values grew from US$1.19 billion to US$1.308 billion and from US$730 million to US$802 million, respectively, over 2011-2012..
The brand name of the 85°C chain of coffee and bakery shops operated by the Gourmet Master Co. is valued at US$272 million, up from US$219 million last year, advancing one notch to 10th place in the rankings. The brand value of Uni-President, a chain of convenience stores and a line of food and drinks, is up from US$137 million to US$153 million; and WOWPRIME Corp., a food-service provider, has squeezed into the top 20 brands for the first time with 11 restaurant brands worth a total of US82 million.
Interbrand explained that the booming growth of Taiwanese food and food-service brands is due partly to their entry into the vast Chinese market, and partly to improvements in their business operations from distribution channel expansion to product mix optimization. This shows the strong potential of Taiwanese companies to build influential brands with well-recognized appeal for consumers in the Greater China area.
High-tech Firms Ride Digital Trends
While some Taiwanese high-tech firms face an increasingly challenging market and have seen their brand value decline to some extent, Interbrand commented, others are managing to grow by riding digital trends.
One of these is Trend Micro Inc., a developer of own-brand anti-virus software, which succeeded in boosting its brand value by 11% to US$1.355 billion this year, from US$1.217 billion in 2011. Another is Advantech Co., a supplier of embedded computing systems, which saw its brand value rise 8% to US$260 million, up from US$241 million; the increase came mainly from the company's launch of its Advantech Online Solution Forum, a new cloud technology-based solution developed in its “Digital Curation” concept, which can deliver 24-hour programming to every corner of the world continuously for seven days in a row.
Interbrand urged that in view of the uncertain global economy and sluggish market demand for ICT (information and communications technology) devices other than smartphones and tablet PCs, Taiwanese companies should try to strengthen the emotional value of their brands while taking advantage of emerging digital applications to build better connections with consumers. This way, Interbrand said, they will be able to develop brands more sustainably in the increasingly competitive global market. (SC, Oct. 2012)
Taiwan's Top 20 International Brands for 2012 by Value | ||||
Ranking | Brand | Owning Company | Brand Value | Ranking in 2011 |
1 | HTC | HTC Corp. | US$2.753 Bn. | 1 |
2 | Acer | Acer Inc. | US$1.676 Bn. | 2 |
3 | Asus | Asustek Computer Inc. | US$1.662 Bn. | 3 |
4 | TrendMicro | Trend Micro Inc. | US$1.355 Bn. | 4 |
5 | MasterKong | Tingyi Holding Corp. | US$1.308 Bn. | 5 |
6 | Want-Want | Want Want Holdings Ltd. | US$802 M. | 6 |
7 | Giant | Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd. | US$342 M. | 7 |
8 | Synnex | Synnex Technology International Corp. | US$339 M. | 9 |
9 | Cheng Shin | Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co. | US$331 M. | 8 |
10 | 85°C | Gourmet Master Co., Ltd. | US$272 M. | 11 |
11 | Advantech | Advantech Co. | US$260 M. | 10 |
12 | Merida | Merida Industry Co., Ltd. | US$210 M. | 13 |
13 | D-Link | D-Link Corp. | US$202 M. | 12 |
14 | Uni-President | Uni-President Enterprises Corp. | US$153 M. | 18 |
15 | Zyxel | Zyxel Communications Corp. | US$141 M. | 16 |
16 | Johnson | Johnson Health Tech Co. | US$140 M. | 19 |
17 | CyberLink | CyberLink Corp. | US$138 M. | 15 |
18 | Transcend | Transcend Information Inc. | US$130 M. | 14 |
19 | Delta | Delta Electronics Inc. | US$117 M. | 17 |
20 | WOWPRIME | WOWPRIME Corp. | US$82 M. | New |