Chinese company Tencent is the fastest growing brand in the world, according to the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand rankings, and it’s also now the most valuable brand from Asia.

The media/entertainment/web company has nearly doubled its brand value in the past 12 months, and has overtaken China’s state-owned telecommunications and banking brands to become the most valuable brand from Asia. The first Australian brand, Commonwealth Bank, appears at number eight in the list of brands from Asia.

Tencent Holdings Limited comprises more than a dozen products and services including popular instant messaging (QQ, mascot is the penguin pictured above), social networking, video and online payment services, as well as several wholly-owned subsidiaries in the software development space.

Johnny Panagiotidis, senior business consultant at Millward Brown Australia, says the growth Tencent has experienced in its brand value reflects a global trend of technology companies becoming more than just tools in the lives of users.

“China’s Tencent has emerged as the fastest growing brand in the world,” Panagiotidis says. “It has almost doubled its value to $54 billion to rise to the number 14 ranked brand globally, overtaking China Mobile to become the most valuable Asian brand.

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“It reflects an interesting trend in this year’s results: tech service brands are thriving while product-based companies are struggling. Digital service brands like Tencent are becoming much more than just tools. They offer new forms of communication that absorb people’s attention and imagination, while helping them organise the rest of their lives.”

The BrandZ ranking is an annual study commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, using the views of potential and current buyers of a brand, alongside financial data, to calculate brand value.