Ping An Ranks 38th in BrandZtm Top 100 Global Brands, Tops Global Insurance Brand Rankings for 5th Consecutive Year

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) has been ranked 38^th in the 2020 BrandZtm Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, up two places from last year. The rankings were jointly released by WPP, the world's largest communications services group, and Kantar Millward Brown, the world's leading evidence-based insights and consulting company. Ping An also maintained its top position among global insurance brands for the fifth consecutive year. With a 15% growth in brand value to US$33.81 billion, Ping An ranked sixth among all Chinese brands in the list.

The BrandZtm Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands is one of the world's most influential brand valuation reports. The brand valuation ranking combines rigorous analysis of Bloomberg market data with extensive consumer insights from over 3.8 million consumers around the world, covering over 17,500+ different brands in 51 markets.

Doreen Wang, Global Head of BrandZtm at Kantar Millward Brown, said, "Chinese brands are the 'calling cards' of China. Ping An has topped its global insurance peers for five consecutive years. Capitalizing on innovation and technology, Ping An constantly redefines its boundaries and become a preferred brand that is relevant to customers' lives. I am proud to see a homegrown Chinese brand become the preferred choice of Chinese citizens."

In 2020, 17 Chinese brands made the BrandZtm Top 100 list, with China having the second largest number of brands on the list and the fastest brand value growth. The total brand value of Chinese brands in the ranking increased by 16%, close to three times of the global growth rate. The top 100 global brands have seen their total brand value increase by 5.9%, despite the economic, social and personal impacts of COVID-19. The total brand value of the top 100 global brands reached US$5 trillion, equivalent to the annual GDP of Japan.

In 2019, Ping An clearly defined "finance + technology" as its core business strategy, ensuring steady growth in its main financial businesses while increasing its investment in technology. Ping An aims to "empowering financial services with technologies, empowering ecosystems with technologies, and empowering financial services with ecosystems". In 2019, the Group's revenue amounted to RMB1,168,867 million, up 19.7% year on year, while net profit grew 36.5% year on year to RMB164,365 million. As at the end of 2019, the number of retail customers exceeded 200 million for the first time, with the Group's internet users and app users up to 516 million and 470 million respectively.

Empowering financial services with technologies

Ping An applies innovative technologies in its financial business. For example, the Group's life and health insurance unit entirely uses artificial intelligence (AI) interview robots to recruit sales agents. The agents' exclusive smart personal assistant, AskBob, has served agents 340 million times since going live. Ping An Property & Casualty launched the "Ping An Credit-Based Auto Insurance Claim" service for auto owners with safe driving behaviors to provide 45 million auto owners with a line of credit and turnaround times from quotation to policy issue as short as 20 seconds. At Ping An Bank, 14.3 million credit cards issued and nearly 90% were automatically approved by AI.

Empowering ecosystems with technologies

Ping An has been actively developing five ecosystems in recent years: financial services, health care, auto services, real estate services, and smart city services. These ecosystems enable Ping An to maximize the brand's share of voice, enhance customer loyalty and expand its customer base. For example, in healthcare, Ping An's Health 360 program provides customers with comprehensive outpatient, inpatient, surgical and recuperation services. Ping An Good Doctor provides services including 24/7 online consultation, referral, registration, online drug purchase, and one-hour drug delivery. The platform provided more than 670 million online consultations and yearly active users reached 282 million.

Empowering finance services with ecosystems

Ping An exploits synergies between ecosystems to provide smart, online/offline and one-stop services. Many internet users in the five ecosystems have become the Group's financial services customers. In 2019, the Company acquired 36.57 million new customers, 40.7% of whom were sourced from internet users within the Group's five ecosystems. Retail customers growth overall was by 11.2%.

Environmental, Social and Governance investment

Ping An supports a green environment, a harmonious society and a sustainable economy. As of 31 December 2019, Ping An's responsible investment reached RMB954,449 million, the insured amount of sustainable insurance totaled RMB121.21 trillion and green credit lines granted reached RMB59,056 million.

Ping An also continues to evolve its Ping An Rural Communities Support programs, including industry promotion, healthcare and education support and a new smart model of poverty alleviation. Ping An Rural Communities Support has been implemented in 21 provinces or autonomous regions across China, with the total poverty alleviation funds granted of RMB15.745 billion. Through the program, 949 village and township clinics were upgraded, 11,175 village doctors were trained, 1,054 village primary schools were upgraded, and 11,826 village teachers were trained.

Besides Ping An, other Chinese brands in the Top 100 include Alibaba (6th), Tencent (7th), Moutai (18th), ICBC (31st), China Mobile (36th), Huawei (45th), JD (52nd), Meituan (54th), China Construction Bank (58th), Didi (64th), Haier (68th), China Agricultural Bank (69th), TikTok (79th), Xiaomi (81st), Baidu (91st) and Bank of China (97th).