Dacia ranks first in Romania’s most valuable brands list

According to Brand Finance Dacia is the most valuable Romanian brand, worth EUR 1.2bn.

Every year, leading valuation and strategy consultancy Brand Finance values the brands of thousands of the world’s biggest companies. Romania’s 50 most valuable brands and 10 most valuable brand portfolios are featured in the debut Brand Finance Romania 50 report.

The automotive brand Dacia is the most valuable Romanian brand of 2017, and the only one so far worth over EUR 1bn.

This comes hardly as a surprise – Dacia is an established, popular car brand – virtually the only car available for purchase in Romania until 1989. The takeover by Renault in 1999 prompted a revival of the brand. Nowadays, Dacia is Renault’s second brand by sales with presence in 34 countries and over 90% of the local production sold abroad.

Looking at brands by industry, apart from the particular automotive category of one, the retail sector has generated the most brand value, with a total of 10 brands worth EUR 796m, the report underlines.

Worth EUR 112m and placing 7th in the league table, Bitdefender is Romania’s most valuable technology brand. The antivirus software brand has gone from strength to strength, fuelled by the increasing need for data protection in the era of digital revolution. Regularly topping the global antivirus software rankings, Bitdefender solutions cater to hundreds of millions of users worldwide – with a huge upswing potential in Europe and the US.

New brands like eMAG, Dedeman, Digi, Bitdefender or Tiriac – created and developed by entrepreneurs over the past 28 years – make up more than half of the Brand Finance Romania 50 league table, generating over EUR1.5bn in brand value. Some of Romania’s most valuable brands, however, carry a long history, often spanning more than a century, and remain under state-ownership. Unfortunately, many of those brands, important from the point of view of public interest, like Tarom or CFR, are mostly neglected by the state, despite their considerable potential. However, there are notable exceptions, such as the successful CEC Bank brand, valued at EUR 56m. It is a perfect example of how able leadership and management could turn around a declining state-owned business and place it amongst the strongest players.

“Valuing brands taps into the hidden value that lies within them. The Brand Finance Romania 50 report is a first step to understanding more about Romanian brands and using that knowledge to benefit businesses. As the importance of South-Eastern Europe to the global economy grows, it is high time to follow local brands more closely,” David Haigh, CEO of Brand Finance, commented.

“Brands are sometimes neglected because, in line with current accounting rules, intangible assets are generally not reflected in financial statements. To overcome this, the most astute economic players track their intangible value by means of periodic valuations and assessments. The time has come for Romanian brands to follow suit,” Mihai Bogdan, Managing Director of Brand Finance Romania, commented.

Next to analysing individual brands, Brand Finance Romania 50 also lists the 10 most valuable portfolios of brands, calculated for those businesses that deploy more than one brand on the market. These portfolios encompass over 40 well-known local brands, most valuable of which are also ranked individually in the main top 50 league table.