Brand Africa Reveals 2024 Rankings: MTN, Dangote, Trade Kings Top the List of Brands

Brand Africa has released its 14th annual Brand Africa 100: Africa's Best Brands rankings, highlighting a persistent trend: while 64% of Africans express confidence in their continent, they continue to favour non-African brands, which hold a modest 14% share of the most admired brands in Africa.

In terms of countries, African nations dominate the list of the Top 50 most admired globally, with South Africa, Nigeria, the United States, China, and Kenya leading the pack as the top five nations perceived to be contributing positively to Africa's development.

The expanded nine-member BRICS bloc, excluding Iran, is well-represented, with Southern and West Africa making up 44% of the Top 50 most admired countries worldwide.

Despite this, African brands have maintained their 14% share of the Top 100 most admired brands in Africa for the second consecutive year. The leading African brands, based on spontaneous recall, include:

MTN (South African Telecommunications Group)

Dangote (Nigerian conglomerate)

Trade Kings (Zambian consumer group)

Glo (Nigerian telecommunications group)

DStv (South African media group)

Ethiopian Airlines

South Africa (5) and Nigeria (5), with Ethiopia (1), Zambia (1), Zimbabwe (1) and Tanzania (1), are the only six African nations that make up the 14% share of the Top 100.

Europe retained its 37% share of the Top 100, while North America declined 12.5% to 28% as Asia grew its share by 23.5% to capture 21% of the African market.

Nike, Adidas, Samsung, Coca Cola and Apple have all retained their positions for the fifth consecutive year as the Top 5 most admired brands in Africa.  

Brand Africa says in an interesting insight, affirming how entrenched non-African brands are in Africa, many are mistakenly recalled among the most admired 'African' brands when the question is asked, "What African brands do you admire?" These include: 

• Coca-Cola
• Pepsi
• Samsung
• Lacoste
• Total (Energies), and
• Guinness.

Among organisations that are driving to do good while doing well, focusing as much on social and environmental concerns as on profits, UNICEF (originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) and UN, the #1 NGO, Coca Cola the #1 non-African organisation and MTN the #1 African brands retained their positions among the most admired brands in Africa.  

"While the share of African brands remains a disappointing 14%, with Africans overwhelmingly believing that mostly Africa will contribute to a better Africa, as nations continue to create an enabling environment for African entrepreneurs and the AfcFTA opportunity is realised, it's just a matter of time, but ultimately the share of African brands will increase," says Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman of Brand Africa. 

Recognising that brands are a vector of a nation or organisation's identity and reputation competitiveness, every year, since 2011, Brand Africa conducts research in over 30 markets which account for as much as 85% of the continent's GDP and population. This is done through its independent research partners: Kantar, Geopoll across sub-Sahara Africa, Integrate in North Africa, and Analysis in the East African Islands.

The results are published as the lead cover story in the June edition of African Business, the continent's foremost business magazine since 1966, Brand Africa says. 

Brand Africa concludes that over the next few weeks, Brand Africa will release country-specific results in key countries across the continent.