Brand Finance announces its annual review of brands

Brand Finance Lanka, the pioneering brand valuation and strategy firm, which first launched the most valuable Sri Lankan brands in 2003, is gearing up to celebrate its 15th consecutive year of publication next month. Sri Lanka Brands 2018 is being published in LMD’s Brands Annual.

In last year’s league table, BOC retained its most valuable brand ranking at the top of the table, but its performance was somewhat overshadowed by the faster-growing Dialog which leapfrogged People’s Bank to take the No. 2 position.

The key question this year is, will a new technology brand beat out the long-established 79-year-old banking behemoth, BOC?

The rise of technology brands is a trend that is seen across the world. For the very first time, the technology brands took the top five positions in this year’s Brand Finance Global 500 table, with Amazon at No.1 followed by Apple, Google, Samsung and Facebook. These brands have overtaken the old legacy brands such as Coca-Cola, Citibank, Walmart and GE amongst others, dramatically changing the business and brand landscape within a short period of 10 years. 

This phenomenon has long been a possibility in Sri Lanka too, as Dialog has consistently been given a triple A brand rating which means it is the strongest brand on the Sri Lanka league table. Brand strength is an indicator that it has the potential to create value in the long term, which is exactly what has happened. This has resulted in a more rapid increase in brand value, catapulting it to take the No. 2 slot last year, with the top spot not being too far out of reach. 

Being the 15th anniversary publication, Brand Finance has introduced a separate table to recognise the Conglomerate Brands this year. Since these businesses dominate the Colombo Stock Exchange, and account for a major share of value whilst also topping the revenue rankings, they warrant a closer review in terms of how they are leveraging their corporate brand. 

So, for the first time Brand Finance announced that it will be presenting the conglomerate’s portfolio brand value in a separate table. The diverse businesses under their portfolio which include many business to business as well as consumer businesses within a single holding company does not enable them to be compared and listed alongside the most valuable consumer brands, according to Brand Finance Lanka.

Brand Finance Plc, the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy, advises strongly branded organisations on maximising their brand value through effective management of their brands and intangible assets. Founded in 1996, Brand Finance has performed thousands of branded business, brand and intangible asset valuations worth trillions of dollars. Its clients include international brand owners, tax authorities, intellectual property lawyers and investment banks. 

Brand Finance is headquartered in London and has a network of international offices including Colombo.