RIYADH — The London-based Brand Finance, world’s leading independent brand valuation and strategy consultancy, issued its annual brand valuation ranking where Mobily came in ninth most valuable brand in Saudi Arabia, gaining 3 notches up the scale and increasing in value by 31% to reach $1.1bn. Salman Al-Badran, CEO of Mobily, commented: “The Brand Finance ranking testifies to our company’s hard work and steadfast achievements over the past period. Our efforts at all levels and across all departments over the past years translated into more satisfied customers due to ongoing enhancements in the quality of our services, and thus all indicators followed suit.” Brand Finance explained the methodology it followed to come up with the ranking. “Brand Finance has assessed the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak based on the effect of the outbreak on Enterprise Value, as at 18/03/2020 compared to what it was on 1st January 2020. Based on this impact on Business Value, Brand Finance estimated the likely impact on Brand Value for each sector. Each sector has been classified into 3 categories based on the severity of Business Value loss observed for the sector in the period between 1st Jan 2020 and 18th March 2020.” According to Brand Finance, which values 5,000 of the world’s biggest brands on an annual basis, the brand value is “understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market.” — SG