Interbrand, established for over 40 years, is widely recognised as the world's leading brand consultancy through its pioneering work and the development of its many of the brand building tools. In fact it was the first company to have its brand valuation methodology certified as meeting ISO 10668 (requirements for monetary brand valuation) and played a role in developing the standard itself.

There are three key pieces of analysis that form the basis of Interbrand’s valuation methodology is based on 3 key pieces of analysis:

  • The financial performance of the branded products or services.
  • The role the brand plays in purchase decisions.
  • The brand’s competitive strength and its ability to create loyalty and, therefore, sustainable demand and profit into the future.

Using these criteria, Interbrand have analysed the performance of the world's leading brands for the last 20 years compiling a Top 100 list, the latest of which has just been published.

Technology continues to dominate with over half of the top 10 brands being tech businesses - Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung retain their places with Apple in the No.1 spot with a valuation of $234 Billion. The technology sector also demonstrates the most volatility and fluctuations with Dell returning after a 6 year absence and Uber and Linkedin becoming new entrants. However, Facebook fell out of the Top 10 dropping from 9 to 14 after a year of bad press that led to 12% loss in value, according to the report. Facebook first entered the top 100 as recently as 2012 at 69, then followed a steady stream of growth peaking in 2017 at 8 with a brand balue of $48.19 Billion but last year it slipped to 9 and has now fallen to 14 with a brand value of $39.86 Billion.

 

 

Mastercard, Salesforce, Starbucks and Caterpillar were the brands that demonstrated the most growth last year each, of them showing at least a 17% increase in brand value, according to Interbrand.  Overall the top 100 has doubled in value to $2.2 Trillion since 2001 when the total value of the companies that made the list was about $988 Billion.

Some of the stand outs from the list include:

  • 26 of the 100 brands grew brand value by more than 10%.
  • Uber and Linkedin joined the list at 87 and 98 respectively.
  • Facebook dropped out of top 10.
  • The top 4 places were taken by technology brands - Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
  • Mastercard was the biggest grower with 25% growth.
  • Luxury and retail comprise the fastest growing sector for the second year in a row.
  • Only 31 brands from 2000 remain in the Top 100, and only Microsoft and Coca-Cola retained their Top 10 standings.
  • Chinese companies WeChat and the Alibaba Group didn’t make the list.

 

“The top-growing brands all excel on both responsiveness and relevance. Being able to predict what changes are happening … to constantly remain relevant in an era where categories are endlessly disrupted and legacy brands are endless challenged.”

Daniel Binns, CEO Interbrand New York