News

Google overtakes Apple as most valuable brand

May 21, 2014

Google has overtaken Apple to become the world's most valuable global brand in the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand ranking, worth $159 billion, an increase of 40 percent year on year.

After three years at the top, Apple slipped to No. 2 on the back of a 20 percent decline in brand value, to $148 billion. While Apple remains a top-performing brand, there is a growing perception that it is no longer redefining technology for consumers, reflected by a lack of dramatic new product launches, according to the report. The world's leading B2B brand, IBM, held onto its No. 3 position with a brand value of $108 billion.

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, is now in its ninth year.

"Google has been hugely innovative in the last year with Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a multitude of partnerships that see its Android operating system becoming embedded in other goods such as cars," said Nick Cooper, managing director of Millward Brown Optimor. "All of this activity sends a very strong signal to consumers about what Google is about and it has coincided with a slowdown at Apple."

"This year's index highlights the end of the recession, with a strong recovery in valuations and, for the first time, real growth across every category and the Top 100 as a whole," said David Roth, CEO of The Store, WPP. "What's remarkable is the way that strong brands have led the recovery. Seventy-one of the brands listed in our 2014 Top 100 were there in 2008. Despite the financial turmoil and the digital disruption that have decimated many businesses during the last few years, these brands have remained in the ranking, proving the durability of strong brands."