TAIWAN: HTC, Acer and Asus are the three most valuable brands in Taiwan, demonstrating the strength of a new breed of consumer electronics manufacturers from Asia, a study has found.

Interbrand, the consultancy, partnered with the Taiwan External Trade Development Council and BusinessNext magazine to determine which intangible assets had the greatest net worth.

Electronics firms made up five of the top ten, often occupying distinct positions in the market. "Many Taiwan brands have the two vital ingredients that all successful brands must have: quality and value," said Stuart Green, Interbrand's Asia Pacific CEO.

HTC, the world's third biggest smartphone manufacturer, led the charts on $3.6bn, improving from $1.4bn last year, boosted by its innovative devices and "Quietly Brilliant" marketing campaign.

"When consumers want to buy a smartphone today, they have many choices," John Wang, HTC's CMO, said. "When they choose HTC, we want them to think they are buying a highly personal device. Therefore, we think of ourselves as a personal experiences company."

Acer, another electronics player active in areas from telecoms to televisions, fell to second, despite witnessing a 38% surge on an annual basis, hitting $1.9bn.

Taking third place was Asus, a rival to Acer, which saw its net worth climb by 27%, attaining $1.6bn, ahead of TrendMicro, a software firm, off by a modest 1%, to $1.2bn.

Master Kong, a food and beverage group best-known for its noodles, completed the top five after a 12% leap to $1.2bn. Want-Want, from the same industry, followed on $739m, a 53% expansion.

Giant, the bicycle maker, was on $337m, Maxxis, a tyre and rubber firm, logged $335m, Synnex, the IT product distributor, secured $317m, and Advantech, the computer hardware specialist, yielded $241m.

The top 20 brands were valued at $13.1bn, growing 40% year on year. Within this, the top five supplied over $10bn of the total.

"Branding has been good for Taiwan companies and for the Taiwan economy," said Green. "It is just a matter of time before we see a Taiwan brand in Interbrand's Best Global Brands list."

Interbrand's study combined measures of an organisation's financial performance, the role of the brand within this, and the expected future contribution of the intangible asset in question.

Data sourced from Interbrand; additional content by Warc staff