Emirates named most popular UAE brand in annual YouGov study

Emirates Airline has once again been named the top brand for consumers in the UAE, according to a new study.

The Dubai airline came first for the third year in a row in YouGov's BrandIndex annual brand health rankings.

YouGov said the rankings are compiled by taking into account "consumers’ perception of a brand’s overall quality, value, impression, reputation, satisfaction and whether consumers would recommend the brand to others". It then takes the 52-week rolling average of the index score.

Emirates' score of 60.7 was well ahead of second place WhatsApp, which recorded a score of 49.8. There was a gap of only 7.8 points between 10th place and second.

The airline, which is the world's biggest long-haul flight operator, has this year introduced new first class cabins on Middle East flights, added the world's shortest A380 route from Dubai to Oman and has also ramped up its special livery fleet with decals inspired by Expo 2020 and the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Other brands to make it to the top 10 UAE list were Samsung in third (up from fifth last year), Carrefour in fourth (up from 10th), Google at fifth (down from second), YouTube in sixth (down from fourth), Almarai at seventh (same place), Apple at eighth (down from sixth), iPhone was ninth (no change) and Samsung Galaxy was tenth (new entry).

The Galaxy brand appears to have recovered after its troubles with the Note 7 handset which suffered battery fires. Although, its innovative Fold handset is yet to make it to stores in the UAE after problems were detected with its review units earlier this year.

YouGov also revealed the most improved brands in the UAE during the past year.

"Netflix is the most improved brand of 2019, with a change in score of plus 9.8," YouGov said.

"The brand’s original content seems to be resonating well with UAE consumers and has helped it enhance its score from 12.0 in 2018 to 21.8 in 2019."

Huawei was another to climb the ranks, gaining eight points, despite the global controversy surrounding security concerns with the Chinese tech giant.

"Warner Bros World (6.9) and Coca-Cola (6.4) have also shown improvement and sit at third and fourth in the list. Noon.com (4.2), Downy (3.9), Colgate (3.7), Mai Dubai (3.7) and Pepsi (3.5) are the other improvers in the list of most improved brands of 2019," YouGov said.

In the annual global rankings released by YouGov, using data from 29 countries, eight of the top 10 brands are considered tech companies, with Google coming top, followed by WhatsApp and YouTube.

The National