(Hong Kong, Shanghai, 22 June 2021) Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter “Ping An” or the “Group”, HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) announced that it is #1 among global banks and insurance companies in the 2021 BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, issued by Kantar Millward Brown. Its brand value has increased by 13% year-on-year to US$38.054 billion and it is ranked 49th among all companies in the list.

Ping An maintained its top position among global insurance brands for the sixth consecutive year, and ranked seventh among the 18 Chinese brands in the list. China is once again second only to the U.S. in the number of brands in the Top 100.

The total brand value of the top 100 brands increased by a record 42% year-on-year, which is more than four times the average growth rate of the past 15 years. The top 100 brands’ total brand value reached US$7.1 trillion, which equates to the combined GDP of France and Germany. The rise in brand value was due to the recovery of market confidence driven by the launch of COVID-19 vaccines, governments’ economic stimulus policies and continuously improving economic prospects.

The BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands is one of the world's most influential and largest brand valuation reports. The brand valuation ranking combines rigorous analysis of Bloomberg’s market financial data with extensive consumer insights from over 4 million consumers around the world, covering over 18,000 different brands in 51 markets.

Ms. Doreen Wang, Global Head of BrandZ™ at Kantar Millward Brown, said, “Chinese brands have managed to achieve strong growth and became an increasingly important global driving force amid a difficult year. As the Chinese economy achieved a stable and solid recovery, Chinese consumers are optimistic about the future. Therefore Chinese brands, which are able to meet the ever-changing demand of consumers through innovation gain love and loyalty from the market.

“Chinese companies have never ceased to invest in brand building in a challenging time, given that they realized the need to shift from speedy growth to quality growth and to focus on creating domestic brands rather than domestic products.”

Despite the impact of COVID-19, Ping An has continued to pursue steady progress by continuously advancing its “finance + technology” and the “finance + ecosystem” strategies. Ping An adheres to the philosophy of “expertise makes life simple, technology makes financial services heartwarming, and healthcare makes life better”.

For the year ending December 31, 2020, Ping An’s revenue amounted to RMB1,321,418 million. Net profit amounted to RMB159,359 million. Total assets amounted to RMB9,527,870 million. In 2020, Ping An served more than 218 million retail customers and more than 598 million internet users.

Technology makes financial services more heartwarming

Ping An aims to provide customers with high-quality services, including financial products, healthcare and technology, to safeguard the safety and health of millions of families.

Ping An continues to develop innovative technology to improve customer experience. In 2020, Ping An Life pioneered “Smart Advance Payment Services” in the insurance industry to provide relief for medical costs for customers, making advance compensation payments of more than RMB260 million last year. Ping An Property & Casualty launched contactless “One-click Claims Services” for auto accidents, which have been used by over 2.34 million customers through the Ping An Auto Owner app. Ping An Bank launched the “Smart Anti-fraud System “(SAFE) for its retail business, which has helped to prevent more than RMB2.4 billion of losses from fraud attacks since its launch.

In 2020, OneConnect, Ping An’s technology-as-a-​service platform for financial institutions,established partnerships in 20 overseas countries and regions to develop new infrastructure for financial services. OneConnect’s virtual bank officially opened for business in Hong Kong, and OneConnect teamed up with China Merchants Port Group to develop smart ports and facilitate trade across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Ping An’s ecosystems help society

Ping An develops financial services, healthcare, auto services, and smart city services ecosystems by leveraging its leading innovative technologies and extensive experience in financial services and healthcare. As of December 31, 2020, Ping An’s smart city business had served 151 cities across China. In healthcare, Ping An Good Doctor’s revenue of online healthcare services for 2020 grew strongly by 82.4% year-on-year. Benefiting from the “finance + ecosystem” transformation strategy, Ping An acquires new users by expanding its ecosystems to provide customers with “one account, multiple products, and one-stop services”.

Setting ESG standards in China

In 2020, Ping An donated supplies and cash exceeding RMB180 million to combat COVID-19. It also continued to expands the Ping An Rural Communities Support program, providing more than RMB29,834 million in poverty alleviation funds to benefit an impoverished population of 730,000. The program also helped build and upgrade 1,228 rural clinics and 1,054 rural schools, and trained nearly 12,000 village doctors and 14,000 village teachers.

Last year, Ping An also invested a cumulative total of more than RMB5 trillion of financial resources, including insurance funds and bank credit, to support the real economy. It rolled out its artificial intelligence-driven Environmental, Social and Governance (AI-ESG) smart management platform to support and enable responsible investments. It also launched the Xinhua CN-ESG Evaluation System together with Xinhua News Agency’s China Economic Information Service to set national ESG evaluation standards with Chinese characteristics. As of December 31, 2020, Ping An’s responsible investments exceeded RMB1.03 trillion.

Other Chinese brands in the BrandZTM Top 100 include Tencent (5th), Alibaba (7th), Moutai (11th), Meituan (34th), JD.com (44th), TikTok (45th), Huawei (50th), ICBC (51st), Haier (65th), China Mobile (68th), Xiaomi (70th), Baidu (77th), Pingduoduo (81st), AIA Insurance (81st), Didi (93rd), China Construction Bank (94th) and KE Holdings (96th).