Apple tops global brand rankings again -- by a giant margin

AppleInsider

Apple has once again claimed the top spot as the world's most valuable brand, with Kantar estimating its worth at a staggering $1.29 trillion-- 12% of the value of the entire top 100 list.

According to Kantar's 20th annual BrandZ report, Apple remains the most valuable brand for the fourth year running. Kantar has assigned a somewhat nebulous brand-only dollar amount of nearly $1.3 trillion -- roughly 28% growth year-over-year.

Rounding out the top five were the usual suspects. The 2025 rankings are as follows:

1. Apple, worth $1.29 trillion


2. Google, worth $944.1 billion


3. Microsoft, worth $884.8 billion


4. Amazon, worth $866.1 billion


5. Nvidia, worth $509.4 billion

Kantar values the Global Top 100 brands at $10.7 trillion. This figure would mean that Apple makes up a full 12% of the total value

It's not entirely clear how Kantar calculates these values. According to Kantar, it's a three-step process that uses the financial value and brand contribution to determine the brand value.

Image Credit: Kantar

It then strips away earnings generated by tangible assets and ranks the company based on its intangible assets. Intangible assets include things like software licenses, patents, and "the brand".

Finally, they filter out any earnings that can't be directly attributed to the brand. Essentially, it's a whole lot of speculation.

That being said, the methodology is the same for all companies, so there may be something to be gleaned from it.



Read on AppleInsider

sitime

It seems different brands of the same company are valued separately. So if you add Alphabet’s brands (Google and YouTube) together, that also adds up over a trillion USD.

And if you add up Microsoft’s brands (Microsoft, Linkedin, Xbox) that would get to nearly a trillion USD as well.

I don’t see Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard on the list. Maybe each individual gaming franchise of Activation Blizzard is valued separately (and none of them individually made in the top 100). Otherwise it seems like Activision Blizzard should have made the list as well. Or maybe it got included as “Xbox”? Not sure.

Microsoft also kinda/sorta has an ownership-ish stake in OpenAI (ChatGPT — on the list). So I suppose that would get added in as well in some way.

I’m a little surprised the Tesla brand is ranked so high considering… all that has happened recently, lol. Maybe it was actually ranked much higher before… everything. Or maybe this 2025 list is based on information mostly from 2024 (which would make sense).

Also surprised that Samsung is ranked so low. But maybe Samsung’s individual brands (as well as individual companies) got seperated-out for the purposes of this report. Would the “Galaxy” brand be considered separate from the Samsung brand itself? And would Samsung Electronics be different from all the other Samsung companies?

Interesting list. 

edited May 15