Cape Town - Giant South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung has been voted SA's best-loved electronic brand and best cell phone brand at the Sunday Times Top Brands awards.
The results of the annual brand survey, which is conducted by market research agency Kantar TNS, were announced in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.
Samsung beat out fellow South Korean multinational company LG, which came in second, to claim the top spot in the electronics section. Japanese consumer and electronics conglomerate Sony was placed third.
The top three were followed, in terms of ranking, by Apple, Hisense, Telefunken, Panasonic, Sansui, JVC and HP.
Samsung wins again
In the best cell phone section, which is a separate category, Samsung again come out top, beating Nokia into second, and Apple's iPhone into third.
Samsung, Nokia and Apple have all recently released new premium smartphones as they battle for market share.
They were followed by Huawei, Blackberry, Microsoft, LG, Sony Ericsson, Hisense and Vodafone.
The Top Brands award confirms an earlier study by the South Africa Mobile Report 2017, that found Samsung to be SA's favourite smartphone brand.
READ: SA's favourite smartphone brand
That report released by Effective Measure and the Interactive Advertising Bureau in July was based on a survey of nearly 5 000 mobile internet users across the country.
Samsung was found to be four times more popular with consumers than the closest competitor, the SA Mobile Report found.
“People recognise Samsung as a leader in the market and use our devices because they most closely match their needs as consumers," said Craige Fleischer, director of integrated mobility at Samsung South Africa, at the time.
How the findings are calculated
The polling was conducted by market research agency Kantar TNS. In a media release it stated that to find the best brands for the 32 different consumer categories announced on Wednesday, it polled 3 500 people aged 18 years and older in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.
“Similarly, 468 business leaders and decision-makers were interviewed to establish the Top Brands across twelve business categories,” it said.
“The Kantar TNS methodology used to establish brand ranking and category winners is based on the concept of relative advantage. This takes brand familiarity and awareness, the perceptions of users and non-users, as well as the size of brand presence in the market into account”.
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