Apple named top global brand despite tax avoidance
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple has been named the most "valuable" brand in the world
Despite recent scrutiny regarding the company’s tax avoidance, Apple has topped the list compiled in Marketing Week, which is worth a combined £1.73 trillion.
Although Apple showed only minimal growth of +1 per cent on last year, their £122,525 million valuation saw the global giant retain a clear lead over second place Google, who showed +5 per cent growth and a brand value of £75,254 million.
IBM came in third in the brand rankings, swapping places with Google from the 2012 rankings with a valuation of £74,504 million.
The list, compiled by market researchers Millward Brown, uses a combination of consumer research and financial analysis to determine how much a company’s brand contributes to its core corporate value.
Despite the expected domination of America’s tech giants, South Korean company Samsung came in 30th after a boost from the success of its Galaxy phones.
The Galaxy S4 recently became the fastest selling Android phone ever, with 10 million units sold globally in a month. This was reflected in brand growth of +51 per cent.
Technology brands continued to dominate the list, with 40 per cent of the total value of the top 100 generated from tech and telecoms companies. Tech companies, on average, were valued twice as much as other brands.
This year’s list also proved strong for fashion brands. The year’s fastest-rising brand included Prada with a growth of +63 per cent, while Calvin Klein and Gucci grew by 52 per cent and 48 per cent respectively.
Zara also saw growth of 60 per cent, unseating Nike as the highest value clothing brand, while Amazon beat Walmart to become the number one retail brand.
Britain saw a modest growth of 4 per cent year-on-year, with only seven brands in the top 100, compared to North America’s 47 and Asia’s 23. Vodafone was the UK’s highest ranked brand at 17th place.
A Senate sub-committe heard this month that Apple avoided more than £650,000 in US taxes every hour last year by creating "ghost companies".
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