Apple Is The World's Most Valuable Brand [Study]

Having grown 67 percent from last year, Apple overtook Google for the top spot in WPP's annual ranking of the top 100 global brands, demonstrating technology's strong growth.

Apple has displaced Google as the most valuable brand in the world, according to the BrandZ Top 100 rankings.

Every year, Millward Brown, the market research division of London agency WPP, calculates brand values using interviews with more than 3 million consumers alongside financial and market data. Apple is currently valued at nearly $247 billion, up 67 percent from last year, much higher than Google’s 9 percent jump to $173 billion. This massive growth is par for the course for Apple; since the survey’s 2005 inception, the tech giant has grown 1,446 percent.

“Apple’s increase was driven primarily by the iPhone6 launch and by demonstrating an ongoing commitment to innovation and making life fun and easy for consumers,” says Ann Green, a senior partner with Millward Brown, adding that Apple has held the top spot during many past rankings. “If you look at these brands, they are all successful in making themselves relevant to people’s lives, providing a point of difference in a sea of sameness and amplifying what they stand for in a meaningful, clear and consistent way.”

With Microsoft and IBM rounding out the top four, technology is the fastest growing category. Facebook is ranked 12th, but with a growth rate of 99 percent, the social media giant could crack the top 10 by next year. Together, the tech brands represented – Intel, Samsung, Twitter and Chinese search engine Baidu are also present in the rankings – are worth more than $1 trillion, nearly one-third of the value of the entire top 100.

top20-mostvaluable-brands

Telecommunications providers and retail brands are the next most valuable categories, according to the research. AT&T and Verizon both made the top 10, while Alibaba and Amazon are numbers 13 and 14, respectively. In its first BrandZ Top 100 appearance, Alibaba’s presence shows the strong growth of e-commerce in Asia, particularly China.

“It will be interesting to see what [Alibaba] does as a public company now on the world stage,” Green says.

When Millward Brown began these rankings 10 years ago, one Chinese brand made the list. This year, there were 14, including Tencent  in the technology category and Huawei in telecommunications.

North America – which makes up half the top 100 brands and two-thirds of their cumulative value – also grew 15 percent from last year, while Europe’s brand value declined by 9.3 percent. Asia’s growth has come at the expense of Europe, which has nine fewer brands in this year’s ranking than in 2006. At number 23, Vodafone is Europe’s highest ranking brand.

Rounding out the top 10 were Visa, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Marlboro. Green says she wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook and a Chinese brand or two in next year’s top 10.

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