Tencent and Alibaba make the top 10
China has two firms in the BrandZ top ten most valuable global companies for the first time in history.
The list looks like this:
- Apple
- Amazon
- Microsoft
- Tencent
- Visa
- McDonald’s
- Alibaba
- AT&T
Alibaba is China’s newcomer to the list, joining Tencent in the top 10 for the first time. The e-commerce firm, which has often been seen as China’s Amazon, has doubled its brand value in a year. After a brand value of $59 billion in 2017 (ranked at #13 globally), it is now worth $113 billion. This largely stems from its development of cloud computing and mobile payments.
Unlike Alibaba, Tencent made the top 10 in 2017, but it even rose in ranking this year. After being ranked 8thin 2017, Tencent saw its brand value increase by 65% to $179 billion, placing it at #5. Facebook and AT&T both lost positioning, and IBM left the top 10 altogether.
In fact, Tencent, which specializes in online applications and payments, has a market value of $490 million, making it worth more than JPMorgan Chase.
However, this growth was not easy. Consumers are reluctant to trust foreign brands altogether due to a lack of awareness and past quality issues. And although these Chinese firms have an extraordinarily minor presence in the US, they dominate internationally.
Alibaba’s e-commerce site AliExpress is becoming widely popular in many Latin American countries, including Brazil and Chile. It is also commonly used in Israel and Spain. Tencent has also been improving, seeing growth in south Asia.
Seven other Chinese firms are in the 2018 top 50, so look out for these firms in the coming years as they start expanding like Tencent and Alibaba.
Featured image via Flickr/Charles Chan
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