China Mobile No.1 again as SOEs dominate top brands list

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) continued their dominance on a list of China's most valuable brands, according to an annual report on brand rankings released Tuesday, though brand equities of private companies without government backing have grown more vibrant than their SOE counterparts.

China Mobile continued to be the country's most valuable brand with a value of $61.40 billion, up 21 percent from the previous year, according to results from the annual report by British advertising company WPP.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China retained its No.2 position, but saw its brand value fall by 2 percent to $39.66 billion this year.

Last year's third-place company - China Construction Bank - ceded the spot in this year's ranking to Tencent Holdings, whose brand equity soared 68 percent to $33.88 billion this year.

In the top 50 of the list, market-driven brands - private businesses without government backing - saw a 27 percent growth year-on-year in their total brand value, tripling that of SOEs at 9 percent, the report showed.

The awareness and clout of brands held by private companies have been on the rise in the country over the last year, as domestic consumption has increasingly been seen as a growth engine for the economy amid the government's rebalancing efforts, Tan Beiping, research and development director at the China unit of Millward Brown, which undertook the ranking survey commissioned by WPP, told the Global Times Tuesday.

To mirror the upward consumption trend, this year's rankings were for the first time expanded to 100 brands from the previous 50, including companies from eight sectors that were previously not covered - auto, catering, education, furniture, hotels, jewelry retailing, personal healthcare and property.

WPP's list of the 100 most valuable global brands released in May showed US technology firm Apple retaining the top position with a worth of $185 billion, but facing a rising challenge from rivals such as Samsung and Google. China Mobile was 10th on the global list, the highest among Chinese brands.