Happy lunar new year and may good fortune wend its way to you in this, the year of the sheep! No, ram. Or is it a goat? Perhaps there is some way to combine all three – people these days love a mash-up – so how about the year of the ‘Shramoatp’?
Considering that all three of these woolly, four-legged mammals are members of the same subfamily, Caprinae, you would think it does not matter which is the more accurate representation of the Chinese zodiac.
That is certainly the case in China, where the Mandarin character Yáng simply depicts a horned animal and does not draw a distinction between a sheep or a goat. While that is fine for the world’s most populous country, apparently it’s not enough for Western pedants, who spent much of this week trying to work which it was supposed to be. Incidentally, I was born in the year of the pig, which explains quite a lot…
In business, much is made of a company’s logo or name. Whole careers are dedicated to the theory and practice of conveying brand values through the clever use of fonts, squiggly lines, or images from nature.
It’s a big deal, particularly for a telecoms operator vying to convince a fickle customer base that its brand represents the epitome of quality, reliability and value for money. Plus, the last thing that a telco wants is to be confused for one its rivals.
In this case, it is a representative from China again that seems to be getting it right, if Brand Finance’s latest ranking of the world’s most valuable telecom brands is anything to go by.
China Mobile saw the year’s biggest percentage incre ase, 50%, giving it a brand value of US$47.
9 billion, good enough for third place. Its domestic rivals did not fair nearly so well: China Telecom saw its brand value edge up 1% to $14.1 billion, while China Unicom’s sank 13% to $13.8 billion.
Brand Finance attributed China Mobile’s stellar performance to successfully negotiating a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone and its aggressive 4G rollout.
Indeed, on Wednesday China Mobile revealed that its 4G customer base stood at 106.8 million at the end of January, just over 13 months after it launched its TD-LTE service. According to a Shanghai Daily report earlier this week, China Mobile aims to add another 250 million 4G connections and roll out a further 300,000 TD-LTE base stations in 2015.
It is little wonder then that GSMA Intelligence predicted that China will overtake the U.S. this year to become the world’s largest 4G market. The latter had 148 million 4G subs at the end of 2014, while the former is expected to end 2015 with 300 million – which is perhaps a touch conservative given China Mobile’s reported ambition.
Back to brands and China Mobile still has some way to go to catch the top two though. Brand Finance values first-placed Verizon’s brand at $59.8 billion and second-placed AT&T’s at $58.8 billion.
AT&T performed particularly well, increasing its brand value by 30%. Brand Finance suggested that it is set for another boost if its acquisition of DirecTV is approved, since it will give AT&T a much larger presence in the ent ertainment industry.
In Europe, some major players have seen which way the wind is blowing with regard to their brands.
Telecom Italia late last week announced plans to unite its fixed, mobile and Internet service offerings under the TIM brand. TIM, or Telecom Italia Mobile, is currently only used for the operator’s mobile business. The extension of the brand indicates the Italian incumbent is looking to a future of converged services.
Meanwhile, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries late last week revealed that he expects to completely unify the cable group’s Dutch operations, UPC and Ziggo, under the Ziggo brand by April.
"We feel pretty good about the new Ziggo and its ability to scale across Holland," he said during an investor call.
Of course, UPC customers, for reasons pertaining to practicality, value for money or something less tangible, have bought into, or are at least tolerant of, the UPC brand. After years of trying to differentiate itself from UPC, Ziggo is probably right now on a charm offensive to convince these customers that there is nothing to worry about, because actually, its brand values are broadly similar to those of UPC’s.
In fact, it’s like trying to work out whether it’s the Chinese year of the sheep, the goat or the ram.
