Samsung Electronics has retained its top position in terms of brand value, a report by a British industry tracker showed Tuesday.

According to Brand Finance, the brand value of Samsung Electronics was 83.2 trillion won ($68.6 billion) this year, down 6.3 percent from a record high of 88.8 trillion won last year.



The brand rating of the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker dropped to AAA from AAA+, it added.

The tech giant’s parent company, South Korea’s largest conglomerate Samsung Group, was estimated to be valued at 106 trillion won. Samsung was the fifth-most valuable business group in the world after Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Meanwhile, auto giant Hyundai Motor ranked second with its brand value estimated at 10.3 trillion won, down 9.1 percent from a year ago. Samsung and Hyundai were followed by LG Electronics and SK hynix, with brand value estimated at 9.6 trillion won and 9.5 trillion won, respectively.

Making the most noticeable leap from 10th place last year, SK Group’s chipmaking unit came in fourth, mainly due to record-high earnings last year.

The list of top 10 companies in terms of brand value included SK’s telecom unit with a valuation of 7.7 trillion won, Korea Electric Power Corp. with 7.5 trillion won and Shinhan Financial Group with 4.8 trillion won.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)