That gives AT&T the world's seventh most valuable brand among all company types and the most valuable telecom service brand, according to the survey, with China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL), Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) next in line (see table below).
Table 1: The Most Valuable Telecom Provider Brands 2011
Telecom service ranking | Brand | Value in $ millions | Global ranking among all brands |
1 | AT&T | 69,916 | 7 |
2 | China Mobile | 57,326 | 9 |
3 | Vodafone | 43,647 | 12 |
4 | Verizon | 42,828 | 13 |
5 | Deutsche Telekom | 29,774 | 19 |
6 | Movistar | 27,249 | 21 |
7 | Orange | 17,597 | 36 |
8 | NTT Docomo | 15,449 | 48 |
9 | O2 | 11,694 | 74 |
10 | Telecom Italia | 11,609 | 75 |
11 | Telcel | 11,558 | 76 |
12 | MTS | 10,883 | 80 |
13 | China Telecom | 9,587 | 91 |
14 | TIM | 8,838 | 95 |
Source: Millward Brown |
The global list of all brands puts Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) in top spot followed by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM). You can see the full list plus background information by checking out this link.
Other brands of interest that appeared in the Top 100 include Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) (5th place), HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) (18th), Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) (22nd), Blackberry (25th), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) (44th), Samsung Corp. (67th) and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) a surprisingly lowly 81st in the ranking.
According to Millward Brown, Nokia's brand has devalued by 28 percent during the past year.
Surprisingly, Skype did not make the Top 100.
— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading
I asked whether Skype just missed out on the Top 100 but the company says it doesn't rank companies after the Top 100, so Skype's position not known.
In terms of global brands I'd be amazed if Skype was not a stronger brand than many in that top 100 -- is there a country in the world where Skype is not well known? Whereas TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) is ranked 95th?
It's interesting to see the ranking and to look at the position of brands vs each other, within telecom and within all verticals, but I do wonder just how representative this list is...
Ray