TikTok is the world’s fastest-growing brand – up 215% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) from January 2021. This is according to Brand Finance’s Global 500 report of January 2022. (Brand Finance conducts market research on over 5 000 brands in 29 sectors in 36 countries, with over 100 000 respondents surveyed annually.)
TikTok’s brand value increased from US$18.7 billion to $59 billion Y-o-Y. This moved it into 18th spot in the ranking of the world’s most valuable brands – the highest new entrant to the ranking. The Brand Finance chart showing the top 10 brands in terms of Y-o-Y growth is provided below.
There are four media brands in the top ten fastest-growing brands, including TikTok at number one. In second position is SnapChat. It grew 184% Y-o-Y to $6.6 billion, with its Spotlight short-form video feature being the key driver. Kakao is in third position, with brand value up 161% Y-o-Y to $4.6 billion. Twitter is seventh, with growth of 85% Y-o-Y. The chart also shows the biggest losers in the last year, with Alibaba down 42% Y-o-Y and Warner Brothers down 33%.
WeChat is the world’s strongest brand for the second year running, with a score of 93.3 (out of 100) and a rating of AAA+. Strong performance in the media sector was also seen from:
- Disney – up 11% to $57 billion.
- Netflix – up 18% to $29.4 billion.
- YouTube – up 38% to $23.9 billion.
- Spotify – up 13% to $6.3 billion.
Industries and countries
Tech is again the most valuable industry, with a brand value of $1250.4 billion. Retail is in second place and is the second industry across the $1 trillion mark ($1165.4 billion), with 46% brand value growth. Banking is third ($953.1b) and Media is fourth ($837.7 billion). The full list is shown in the graphic below.
Development of Covid-19 vaccines pushed pharma into the top spot in the fastest-growing industry list.
The US and China still dominate, while India shows the fastest growth (+42%). The US is a long way ahead of China, with 48.6% share of the total ($3937 billion) vs 19.3% ($1563.2 billion). The rest are a long way behind: Germany has 6%; France has 5.7%; the UK has 3.2%. The full list is provided in the graphic above.
World’s top 25 brands
The top 25 brands in the world are shown in the graphic below. Facebook is number 7 – unchanged from 2021. WeChat is down from number 10 in 2021 to number 13 and TikTok has moved into the list at number 18.
There are nine US brands in the top 25, and 11 brands from China. Germany has two brands in the list, while the UK, Japan and South Korea each have one.
(Source: All data was extracted from the annual report published by Brand Finance Brand Directory)
Juliet Gillies is a highly skilled writer, editor and English specialist. She is a professional writer, having started in the marketing/communication field, but now focuses on educational materials and articles on Digital / Social Media / Marketing matters. She has been writing and editing at a professional level for more than 30 years.
