Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s top 10 brands in 2018

Saudi Arabia’s fast food restaurant chain Al Baik has topped the list of most positively perceived brands among consumers in the Kingdom, according to market research firm YouGov’s BrandIndex Buzz Rankings 2018 released on Tuesday.

The fast food restaurant chain jumped to first from fifth place last year. WhatsApp remains in second position, while Almarai slides down two places from the top and settles in third after a year of difficult headlines, YouGov said in a statement.

Also See: Here’s a look at Saudi Arabia’s top brands in 2017

YouGov BrandIndex measures the public’s perception of brands on a daily basis across a range of metrics. The annual Buzz rankings are compiled using Buzz scores from the entire year’s worth of data.

Buzz scores measure whether people have heard anything positive or negative about a brand during the previous two weeks.

Saudi Arabia's national flag carrier, Saudia, has improved its score (+4.8) and also made a re-entry into the rankings at fourth this year, after dropping out last year, YouGov ranking shows.

Al Rajhi Bank is a brand new entrant at tenth. Samsung moves up one position to fifth this year, as does Dettol, from tenth to ninth.

The past year was not a promising one for mobile and technology brands in terms of Buzz scores. Samsung Galaxy lost its spot in the rankings, while iPhone and Apple saw a drop in their ranks, from third and fourth in 2017, respectively, to sixth and seventh in 2018. Even YouTube fell one place to come in eighth.

Also Read: Saudi Telecom, UAE’s ADNOC ranked among world’s 500 most valuable brands

YouGov BrandIndex has also revealed which brands noted the most improvement in their Buzz score in 2018. mada is the “most improved” brand of the past year in Saudi Arabia, with a rise of +8.1 points to its Buzz score, going from +24.0 last year to +32.2 this year. Huawei comes in as the next most improved brand, with a change in score of +7.1.

Beverage brands seem to be particularly resonating with consumers in Saudi Arabia, with Coca-Cola (+5.9), Pepsi (+5.8), Red Bull (+5.1) and Diet Pepsi (+4.2) all recording good improvement in their Buzz scores over the past year, and making the top 10 improvers list.