The third annual BrandZ ranking, released by WPP-owned research firm Millward Brown, lists the world’s most powerful brands as measured by their dollar value.
Returning to the number one spot for a second time, ahead of older brands such as HP, Mercedes and Coca-Cola, Google rules the roost with a brand value of US$86.06 billion (up 30% on the previous year). Google is followed by GE (valued at US$71.38 billion), Microsoft (US$70.89 billion), Coca-Cola (US$58.21 billion) and China Mobile (US$57.23 billion).
The combined value of the top 100 brands has grown 21% from US$1.6 trillion to US$1.94 trillion in 2008, more than double the increase posted the previous year.
The technology sector, including mobile operators such as Vodafone, accounted for 28 of the top 100 brands, and outperformed all other categories in the BrandZ ranking, with a brand value of US$187.5 billion. This represents more than half of the top 100’s total increase.
Chinese brands performed strongly despite the fact that fifth-ranked China Mobile, ICBC (18), China Construction Bank (31) and Bank of China (number 32) are so far only available in
Millward Brown interviews more than one million consumers globally and covers 50,000 brands for this report.
The top 10 brands are:
1 Google US$86.06 billion
2 GE (General Electric) US$71.38
3 Microsoft US$70.89bn
4 Coca-Cola US$58.21bn
5 China Mobile US$57.23bn
6 IBM US$55.34bn
7 Apple US$55.21bn
8 McDonald's US$49.50bn
9 Nokia US$43.98bn
10 Marlboro US$37.32bn
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