Tencent becomes China’s most valuable brand

Tencent Holdings Ltd has been crowned the most valuable Chinese brand in 2014, according Hurun Report, a leading authority on China's wealthy, on Thursday.

Shenzhen-based Internet giant has seen its brand value increase by 136 percent year-on-year to reach 208 billion yuan ($33.4 billion), it said.

It is the first time that Tencent has taken the first place on the list, overtaking the State-owned giants China Mobile Communications Corporation and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, as well as the search engine giant Baidu Inc.

Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, said privately-owned Chinese brands have demonstrated more creativity than the State-owned ones. The rapid growth of Tencent can be very much attributed to the success of real-time communication application WeChat, he added.

In the Hurun Rich List 2013, Ma Huateng, co-founder and chairman of Tencent who owns a 10.25 percent stake of the company, came at third place for the first time with a personal wealth of about $10.1 billion.

ICBC remains the second most valuable Chinese brand this year although its brand value has shrunk 16 percent to reach 206 billion yuan, as it has been actively exploring the overseas market and has been somehow challenged by Internet finance.

Last year's leading player CMCC dropped to third place this year as its brand value fell by 19 percent to 203 billion yuan. It is a combined result of the company's setting up of its 4G network and the impact of WeChat of Tencent, said Hurun Report.

The most valuable privately-owned brand last year, Baidu, was dislodged by Tencent to the second place this year with a brand value of 190 billion yuan, up 79 percent. Among all surveyed privately-owned companies, China's largest online marketplace Taobao.com was next to Baidu and Tencent as its brand value surged 320 percent year-on-year to reach 185 billion yuan.

Out of the 200 brands, 105 of them have seen their value increase and 89 have seen it fall. The total brand value of these brands rose 13 percent to reach over 3.17 trillion yuan, half of which is taken up by the top 10 brands.

About half of the 200 surveyed companies are privately-owned, whose average brand value has increased about 80 percent year-on-year to reach 12.5 billion yuan.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, Robin Li, founder and CEO of Nasdaq-listed Baidu and Ma Huateng of Tencent has held controlling interests or has had stakes in the 12 percent of the top 100 most valuable Chinese brands.