(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Sept. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean tech behemoth Samsung Electronics Co. has seen its brand value spike nearly 60 percent on-year to near 90 trillion won (US$80.1 billion) this year, far outstripping other large companies, industry sources said Monday.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top maker of smartphones and memory chips, topped the recent brand value list of 50 South Korean companies by British consulting firm Brand Finance with 88.8 trillion won, according to the sources. The number was up 57 percent from the previous year and marked an all-time high.
Samsung Electronics also received a brand rating of AAA+, up a notch from a year earlier and the highest ranking granted by the British consultant. It was the sole receiver of the top ranking.
The brand value of Samsung Electronics was much higher than the combined amount of the remaining top 10 companies, which was tallied at 59.8 trillion won.
Leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co. was a distant second with a brand value of 11.3 trillion won, followed by home appliance giant LG Electronics Inc. with 8 trillion won, top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. with 7.7 trillion won and fixed-line leader KT with 6 trillion won.
LG Electronics leapfrogged SK Telecom and KT to third place from fifth place a year earlier.
Memory chip giant SK hynix Inc. jumped to sixth place this year from 16th last year as its brand value shot up 84 percent on-year to 5.9 trillion won thanks to a boom in its memory chip business.
According to the report, the brand value of Samsung Group, the parent of Samsung Electronics, came to 105 trillion won this year, the third largest in the world after Amazon, Apple and Google. Samsung C&T Corp. and five other Samsung units were also included on the list.
(Yonhap)
