Alibaba Group is the world’s most valuable retail brand outside the U.S., say global marketing and communications group WPP and research and consulting firm Kantar.
In their ranking released on Tuesday, WPP and Kantar put Alibaba ahead of McDonald’s, Home Depot, Nike and Louis Vuitton, which held the number three through six spots on the “BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable Global Retail Brands” list. Alibaba was the only Asian brand in the top 10.
Alibaba’s brand value was worth $131.2 billion in 2019, soaring 48% from 2018 when the company ranked number three. The company had been named the most valuable Chinese brand by WPP and Kantar on May 6.
While Amazon came in at number one, a release from WPP and Kantar emphasized that “Amazon is not the only game in town.”
“Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, the world’s largest online and mobile commerce business, arguably has more innovations than Amazon such as partnering with Starbucks (no.7) to have Starbucks in all Alibaba properties, and disrupting its logistics model to better facilitate super-fast delivery,” they said in the release.
That was a common theme throughout a report that accompanied the ranking, which mentioned cooperation or partnerships other top retail brands have with Alibaba to establish or expand their reach in China, thus enhancing their own brand value. Alibaba was also mentioned as a technology and innovation leader, including speeding the migration to mobile, with over 90% of the purchases at last year’s Global Shopping Festival made via smartphones.
“If you want to see the future of retail, look to China – in many ways, it is leading the world,” the report said. “Chinese consumers are using mobile in every aspect of their lives.”
In a section of the report on how the retail year is being redrawn, BrandZ cited the group’s annual Global Shopping Festival on November 11, saying, “Alibaba has turned ‘Singles Day’ into the world’s biggest-ever shopping event.”
The second annual BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable Global Retail Brands ranking and report looks at luxury, apparel, retail and fast-food outlets, analyzing their financial performance and opinions of millions of consumers surveyed in more than 50 markets around the world, according to the release.
