MTN is encouraged to have maintained its position as South Africa’s most valuable brand in Brand Finance’s 2020 Top 50 South African Brands survey released on Wednesday, with a brand value of R49,4 billion.

“We are pleased to be appearing at the top of the list again,” said MTN Group President and CEO Rob Shuter.  “But what is more important is that we’ve made progress year-on-year, in particular in the brand strength index scores.”

According to Brand Finance, MTN’s brand strength improved to AAA in 2020 from AAA- in 2019. This was a result of the group’s focus on improving the customer experience for its almost 260 million subscribers, as well as uniting its 19 000 employees around a shared belief, which is that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.

“We have worked hard to make sure that our customers find that we are easy to do business with, that our propositions are tailormade, and that our network quality is really good,” said Shuter. “Inside MTN, we have focussed on connecting our people to the fact that what we do is worthwhile, and that we make a meaningful contribution to society. This is so important because our people are our brand ambassadors.”

He said the brand helped glue MTN employees together across 21 countries on two continents: “If we deliver a sense of personal ownership in the brand, then we start to have some of the improvements we’ve seen in the last few years, despite some difficult markets and some difficult events.”

In an increasingly competitive and dynamic market, MTN would not rest on its laurels and still had much work to do. “We really are just at the start of this. We are encouraged with the progress, but we are going to keep building the faith, and improving the experience,” Shuter said.