The combined brand value of Korea's top 50 companies reached 231 trillion won this year. Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) firmly held the top spot, while traditional manufacturers including Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) and Kia (000270.KS) made notable gains. SK hynix (000660.KS) stood out in particular, with its brand value surging more than 30% to vault into the top 10.
Interbrand, the world's largest brand consulting group, announced these findings Wednesday in the 14th edition of Best Korea Brands 2026. The combined value of the top 50 brands this year was 231.1005 trillion won, down 1.6% from a year earlier.
By company, Samsung Electronics firmly held first place. Its brand value was 113.2061 trillion won, down 7.4% from a year earlier. Hyundai Motor settled into second place with 30.7459 trillion won, up 10.1% from the previous year. Kia (10.6841 trillion won, up 8.7%), LG Electronics (066570.KS) (8.5956 trillion won, up 9.4%), and Naver (8.2419 trillion won, up 4.8%) followed, forming the second through fifth spots.
The steepest growth on this year's rankings came from SK hynix. SK hynix's brand value was 3.2269 trillion won, jumping 34.8% in a year. Its ranking also climbed four places from 13th the previous year to 9th. CJ Olive Young (951 billion won, 27th) and Doosan Enerbility (034020.KS) (498.9 billion won, 44th) also posted large increases. Along with SK hynix, they were named this year's top value-gaining brands. Game company Krafton (259960.KS) (542.1 billion won, 41st) and integrated food company Dongwon (385.6 billion won, 50th) entered the top 50 for the first time this year.
Interbrand expects the importance of brands to grow further in the coming era of artificial intelligence (AI). This is because the way consumers search is rapidly shifting from a simple search-centered approach to an AI recommendation-based structure.
"A brand can become more powerful when it can design customer experiences based on specificity and trust, and provide hyper-personalized experiences by turning data into stories," said Moon Ji-hoon, global managing partner at Interbrand.
