India’s nation brand value increases 5% in 2018; US, China dominate most valuable nation brands list

China came in the second position with a brand value of ,779 billion, an increase of 25% from last year. (Reuters)

India lost one spot to rank as the 9th most valuable nation brand in the world, falling for the second consecutive year in the list of most valuable nation brands, despite its brand value rising 5% from the previous year, according to Brand Finance’s annual Nation Brands 2018 report. During the year 2018, the total national brand value of India was reported at $2,159 billion from $2,046 billion in 2016, the report showed.

The US grabbed the first spot in the list again with a brand value of $25,899 billion, which rose 23% from the past year as the US economy grew at a rapid pace and the growth is also expected to continue in the coming months, the report noted. Apart from GDP, construction orders, consumer sales, car output and other indicators all show growth.

China again came on the second position with a brand value of $12,779 billion, an increase of 25% from last year, followed by Germany ($5,147 billion), UK ($3,750 billion), Japan ($3,598 billion) and France with $3,224 billion of brand value, the report added.

Source: Brand Finance

In 2016, India was in the seventh position and was the eighth most valuable nation brand in 2017. The brand rating of the country, however, remained unchanged at AA. India is though ahead of countries such as Australia, Spain, Netherlands, Mexico and Switzerland.

Brand Finance measures the strength and value of the nation brands of 100 leading countries using a method based on the royalty relief mechanism employed to value the world’s largest companies. TheBrand Finance research covers nation brand strength, royalty rate, revenues, Weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and brand valuation, among other things.

Meanwhile, India, the world’s sixth largest economy, made progress on other global platforms as recently jumped five ranks to secure 58th rank on 2018 edition of annual Global Competitiveness Index by the World Economic Forum (WEF) due to high-level of research and innovation, and jumped 22 ranks in last four years on the United Nations’ E-Government index, which measures the level of digitisation in governance.