Tencent 8th most valuable global brand

Chinese internet portal Tencent has cracked the top 10 of the world's 100 most valuable brands, according to an annual ranking.

The 2017 Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands was released on Tuesday by WPP and Kantar Millward Brown.

Tech giants Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook took the top five places on the list.

Tencent was ranked No. 8, and was one of 21 brands from the Asia Pacific region to make the list.

Other Chinese brands on the list are Alibaba (14), China Mobile (17), ICBC (28), Baidu (39), Huawei (49), China Construction Bank (54), Ping An (61), Moutai (64), Agricultural Bank of China (72), China Life (78), Sinopec (85) and Bank of China (94).

The report examines both consumer-facing and business-facing brands across 14 product categories, with an analysis of five geographic regions and additional details about brands and consumer attitudes in China, India, Russia, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The US dominates the rankings with 54, and US brands make up 71 percent of the list's value. But more Chinese brands are moving up.

When the annual report was first released 12 years ago, only one Chinese brand - China Mobile, the state-owned telecommunications company - ranked in the BrandZ Global Top 100.

Since then, the number of Chinese brands ranked in the Top 100 has increased, and the value of Chinese brands has surged 937 percent, making up 11 percent of the list's value.

Tencent, with a brand-value increase of 27 percent to $108.3 billion, rose three places to enter the top 10. Tencent has almost 890 million monthly active users on its social media apps, including WeChat.

Tencent also benefited from its online gaming business and payment-related and cloud services, according to the report's analysis.

According to the report's analysis, the Chinese brands come mostly from categories dominated by state-owned enterprises: beverages (including brands like Moutai), banks, insurance, oil and gas and telecom providers like China Mobile.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook combined account for 25 percent of the value of the Top 100. Amazon achieved the highest dollar-value growth of all brands in the Top 100, increasing by $40.3 billion, or 41 percent, to $139.3 billion.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com