M-PESA, Kenya’s biggest mobile payment brand, has been voted Kenya’s leading Superbrand or the sixth year in a row, ahead of parent company Safaricom, which came in second.
A move that has reinforced Mpesa’s position as a platform that is important and necessary to the operation of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and coming at a time when the global economic slowdown is affecting the Kenyan economy.
According to the report, consumers in various purchasing classes have
been forced to choose more economical products due to budget concerns.
Low-cost brands are no longer limited to the mass market as they are now visible as well to the middle-class consumer.
Consumers are increasingly investigating products before making buying
decisions as e-commerce adoption has expanded over the Covid-19 era.
Whereby some of the consumers are emphasizing difference and penalizing brands that are more premium or value-oriented yet lack differentiation from low-priced mainstream products.
This year’s event saw six new brands enter the top 20 for the first time in this survey, compared to the previous 2020 listing. Jik, Darling, Beyond Fruits, Nescafe, St John’s Ambulance, and Kenya Airways are among them.
Most of these findings are based solely on a comprehensive survey of urban Kenyan consumers (chosen at random) conducted by Kantar TNS in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.
The report read, “Not having the luxury to go out and grab fast foods or a quick coffee, and instead order in or prepare alternatives from home has pushed brands like Nescafe from rank 116 in 2020 to 16 and Jumia Foods from nowhere in 2020 to rank 18.”
Consumers were specifically asked about the impact of the Superbrands seal on their decision-making process in 2022.
Eight out of ten respondents were more likely to choose a brand that displayed the seal. As the consumers felt that a company’s involvement with a Superbrand would help enhance its reputation and help it stand out from the competitors.
