Friday, July 28, 2006

Global Branding: Korean Firms Advance

Name recognition of Korean brands has taken decades. Many American still don't know Samsung or LG are Korean. Nevertheless, top Korean firms have made considerable progress.

Korea Times
Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and LG Electronics have increased their worldwide brand value over the past 12 months, a study showed on Friday.

Samsung, the largest company in South Korea, has pushed up its brand value by 8 percent to $16.2 billion to hold its position as the 20th most prestigious brand in the world, according to a top 100 list announced by Interbrand, a brand name consultancy. Samsung was the third Asian company in the list after Toyota at No. 7, and Honda, 19.

Sony, Samsung’s archrival in the consumer electronics field, was six notches below the Korean firm. Samsung began to outrank Sony in the Interbrand rankings from last year when they were placed 20th and 28th respectively.

Samsung is the world’s largest memory chip and LCD panel maker. It is also a key player in the markets for mobile phones, digital TVs and household appliances.

Hyundai Motor was the second South Korean company in the list as it climbed nine notches from last year to 75th place. The automobile maker’s brand value increased by 17 percent to $4.1 billion, unaffected by the arrest of Chairman Chung Mong-koo earlier this year.

LG Electronics also saw a 14-percent increase in value to gain three steps to 94th place.

Coca-Cola, Microsoft and IBM remained as the top three global brands. Tech firms GE, Intel, and Nokia followed in the top tier of the list.

Google and Starbucks were named as the top gainers of the year with 46 percent and 20 percent increases in value respectively.

Among the top 100, 51 were U.S.-based businesses

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