Consumers vote Dangote Group ahead MTN as Africa’s most admired brand

Dangote Group, a leading Nigerian manufacturing firm, has emerged most admired brand, originating from the African continent.

The firm was voted most admired by consumers ahead of telecommunication giant, MTN, in the 6th edition of “Brand Africa 100”, a ranking of 100 best brands on the continent organised by the South African based Brand Leadership Movement in collaboration with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

“Brand Africa 100” was established in 2010, in recognition of the growth of African brands across the globe. It also seeks to identify, acknowledge and promote global brands that are catalysts for Africa’s growth, reputation and value.

Describing the Nigerian brand, Dangote, organisers of “Brand Africa 100” revealed that the industrial brand is the number one African brand recalled when consumers are prompted about the continent of origin while the South African tele-communications brand, MTN is the number one African brand spontaneously recalled irrespective of continent of origin.

The United States sports and fitness brand, Nike, is overall brand in Africa spontaneously recalled by consumers.

The Brand Africa 100 ranking is based on a survey among consumers 18 years and older, conducted in 23 countries across Africa. The countries, representing all African economic regions, collectively
account for 75 per cent of the population and 74 per cent of the GDP of Africa.

Chief corporate communication officer of the Dangote Group, Anthony Chiejina, said the management was not surprised at the ranking as the company has continuously deepened and delivered on its core values.

According to Chiejina, the focus of the company is to be a world-class enterprise that is passionate about the quality of life of the people and giving high returns to stakeholders.

“And this philosophy is driven by values, which include customer service, entrepreneurship, excellence and leadership. In any of our subsidiaries, the focus is to provide local, value-added products and services that meet the ‘basic needs’ of the populace. Through the construction and operation of large scale manufacturing facilities in Nigeria and across Africa, the Group is focused on building local manufacturing capacity to generate employment, prevent capital flight and provide locally produced goods for the people.

“The expansion of our business especially the Cement which has operations in 14 African countries including Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, among others has added to popularity of our company and the products, Chiejina said.

African brands rose slightly to account for 17 percent of the Top 100 brands in Africa, non-African brands retained their firm position in Africa with 83 percent share of the Top 100 most admired brands in Africa.

Brands from Europe led the table with 40 percent, North America at 24 percent and Asia 19 percent; while West Africa had six percent, with only Nigerian brands in that category. Southern African brands were also on the table.

The top 100 was dominated by technology and electronic brands at 29 percent, while consumer (non-cyclical) stood at 19 percent, apparel was placed at 15 percent, automobile was eight percent, food had seven percent while sports & fitness recorded five percent .

Overall, the 2017/18 Brand Africa 100 list, which started out with over 15,500 brand mentions covering over 2,200 admired brands, illustrates a diversified portfolio of categories and brands in Africa.

Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman of Brand Africa and Brand Leadership, said these rankings are an important metric of the progress Africa is making in creating home-grown world-class brands that are changing the narrative on African competiveness, image and reputation and contributing to its socio-economic transformation.

“There is an incredible year-on-year consistency, with 60 percent of the top 10 brands common among the top 10 most admired African brands and most admired brands in Africa, led by Nigeria’s Dangote and Glo, South Africa’s MTN and Shoprite, Kenya’s Tusker and Ethiopia’s Anbessa. Out of the 16 African brands in Top 100 in 2016/17, six exited and seven entered the Top 100 in 2017/18,” he said.