This year’s BrandZ ranking of the top 100 most valuable global brands has confirmed that US giant Apple has held on to its reign at number one. This year’s list of the 100 most valuable brands in the world, shows their total worth to be astonishing $2.6 trillion, according to Millward Brown Optimor, which produces the annual BrandZ list.
Marketing Week’s analysis of the figures examines what makes these top brands so valuable – for instance, Apple is worth $185bn this year. A balance of local and global strength, diversifying into new areas of business, having a strong corporate brand and either being a premium or everyday brand are some of the features which help to make it to the top.
The top 10 brands, such as Google ($113.7bn), IBM ($112.5bn), McDonald’s ($90.3bn) and Coca-Cola ($78.4bn) have these qualities in spades, says global BrandZ director Peter Walshe.
Here are the Top Ten Global Brands by Value:
| Ranking | Brand | Brand value 2013 ($M) |
| 1 | Apple | 185,071 |
| 2 | 113,669 | |
| 3 | IBM | 112,536 |
| 4 | McDonald’s | 90,256 |
| 5 | Coca-Cola | 78,415 |
| 6 | AT&T | 75,507 |
| 7 | Microsoft | 69,814 |
| 8 | Marlboro | 69,383 |
| 9 | Visa | 56,060 |
| 10 | China Mobile | 55,368 |
“What we see with the most popular or powerful brands is that brand lasts a lot longer, is more robust and doesn’t tend to slip as much, whereas the finances go up and down,” he says, suggesting that brand is more sustainable than financials.
Apple’s brand value only increased by 1% this year but it still holds the record for the most valuable brand. And it leads by a long way. The next brand in the ranking, Google, is worth $113.7bn – reversing a 3% decline last year to a 5% gain.
The biggest brand value growth was achieved by Prada which grew its brand value by 63% – the most of any of the brands in the list overall. It is worth $9.5bn, pushing it to number four in the luxury rankings.
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