Samsung still Indonesia's favourite brand

INDONESIA'S TOP 100 BRANDS

All the top 10 brands reported to be the ‘favourite’ of Indonesian consumers remained the same in 2019 as in 2018 — and none of them originated in Indonesia. There were, however, some slight but noteworthy shifts among these top players, with only Samsung and LG remaining static in first and third position.

A report by Canalys, published in February, found that Indonesia was the “brightest spot” in Asia-Pacific’s smartphone market. Samsung leads with over a quarter of the market share, and it is growing at a rate of 21.5% annually. In the smartphone stakes Indonesia’s favourite brand is some way ahead of its Chinese competitor Xiaomi, which Canalys estimates to hold 20.5% of market share. Xiaomi achieved only the 111th position in Nielsen’s list of Indonesia’s favourite brands in 2019, although this was a 10-point gain on 2018. Oppo, the next most popular smartphone brand, landed somewhat further down the list in 270th position, but had also risen 27 places to get there.

• Find the list of Indonesia's top 100 brands in 2019 here

Samsung, which was also Indonesia’s favourite brand in the TV sub-category and consumers’ second-favourite brand in the home audio and headphone sub-catgeory, appears to have a firm handle on what makes consumers tick in Indonesia, with its social media accounts buzzing with engaging campaigns and promotions. One example from June this year was a hugely popular campaign that invited fans to share their cover versions of a song called Kill This Love by Blackpink, the South Korean girl group, to be in with a chance of winning Samsung prizes. The brand’s own video on the Samsung Indonesia YouTube channel has had 9.5 million views since it was uploaded in June.

Aside from Samsung, Indonesia’s top 10 list contained four other electronics brands. In the good news camp was Philips, which moved up two places to eight position; Panasonic, Sony and Apple — which in March opened its first Southeast Asian ‘Developers Academy’ in Jakarta to train a new generation of app creators — all slipped, albeit only by one or two places.

Google also fell four places to 10th position. There’s little to suggest why: the search engine operator launched a suite of new services and products for the market in December 2018. These included the WizPhone, the first Indonesia-made mobile with built-in Google Assistant, and advanced Google Maps features; perhaps their benefits are yet to be felt by consumers in-market.

Elsewhere in the top 10, Nestle moved up three places into second position and Nike and Pizza Hut each moved up two as well, suggesting the market’s enthusiasm for these American brands. Pizza Hut was Indonesia’s favourite restaurant in 2019, followed by Papa John’s; while Nike was the country’s favourite sportswear brand, beating Adidas (which fell three places to 14) and Reebok (which fell 8 places to 51) to the top spot.

Notable gains were also made by Gucci, Indonesia’s favourite luxury goods brand in 2019, the only Asia-Pacific market aside from Vietnam in which this is the case. It rose 10 places in the ranking to 13th position, likely evidence of spending by Indonesia’s growing middle class: Louis Vuitton also jumped 20 places to 113rd position and Chanel stayed the same at 39.

Several other big MNCs were united by the drops in popularity they experienced, however. French hypermarket chain Carrefour dropped 13 places to 28, despite the news, announced last year, that it planned to roll out 300 new stores in Indonesia. South Korean conglomerate Lotte fell 27 places to 49, although shifting its business from China to Southeast Asia has been a central tenet of its growth plan. And campaigns designed to empower teenage girls haven’t been enough, it seems, to stop the American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson sinking 51 places to 75.

Local brands are the priority for consumers in today’s Indonesia, it seems.