As more and more consumers around the world use mobile devices for business and social reasons, Mobile Service Providers has emerged as the fastest growing industry category in terms of brand value growth, according to the 2008 BrandZâ„¢ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands ranking released by global market research and consulting firm Millward Brown.
Led by China Mobile, the mobile service providers category as a whole increased by 35 percent over last year.
The comprehensive, global BrandZ ranking identifies the world's Top 100 most powerful market-facing brands as measured by their dollar value across all industries. It also ranks year-on-year growth of brands in 16 different product categories, including mobile service providers.
Mobile Service Providers Category Highlights:
- The biggest influence on the growth of the market has been the advent of 3G technology, which enables video calling and game downloads.
- Competition is often fierce, as mature markets approach saturation. This makes strong brands and customer relationships even more important.
- The sector has continued to experience intense price pressure.
Mobile Brand Highlights:
- China Mobile, ranked first in the mobile category and ranked fifth among all brands in the BrandZ Top 100, with more subscribers than any other mobile provider, benefited from the rapidly growing Chinese market. The brand's popularity allows it to charge a premium price over competitors.
- Vodafone, second in the category, which has a large worldwide subscriber base, did very well in Germany, Spain and Australia. The brand's value increased significantly as a result of an acquisition, as well as strong growth in emerging markets like Egypt, India Turkey and South Africa.
- Verizon Wireless, third, benefited from its focus on wireless data, wireless broadband, DSL, optic fibre, and its sponsorships in the fields of sports, music and multicultural marketing.
- Movistar, eighth in the category, experienced high growth in Latin America.
- MTS, ninth in the category and the first Russian brand to join the BrandZ Top 100, is currently the biggest mobile operator in Central and Eastern Europe.
MOBILE Service Providers - Category ranking by value, with main metrics:
The complete BrandZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report, with category and regional breakdowns, is available online at www.millwardbrown.com/mboptimor [1] .
About the BrandZ Ranking:
The BrandZ Top 100 is the only brand ranking to combine financials with solid measures of consumer sentiment derived from the BrandZ database, the world's largest repository of brand equity data. The BrandZ ranking was first published in April, 2006 by Millward Brown, a leading global marketing research firm. The ranking is implemented by Millward Brown Optimor, the brand strategy and marketing ROI unit of Millward Brown. Millward Brown is owned by WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY), one of the world's largest communications services groups.