Brands Create Value

Apple world’s most valuable brand, Ferrari most powerful

US electronics giant Apple has been crowned the world’s most valuable brand with a brand value of $87.3bn, but Ferrari is the world’s most powerful brand, according to the BrandFinance Global 500.

According to the ranking, the value of the Apple brand has increased 24% since 2012. South Korean rival Samsung scooped the second spot with a brand value of $58.8bn (+54%), followed by Google, up 10% to $52.1bn.

Microsoft came in fourth, despite a 1% decrease in value to $45.5bn. Walmart rounded-out the top five with a brand value of $42.3bn (+10%).

“Brand is one of many intangible assets which drive profitable growth,” says Brand Finance chief executive David Haigh. “Technology, contractual, human capital and customer intangibles as well as general goodwill all drive overall corporate value.”

The BrandFinance Global 500 analyses the performance of leading brands across all major business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) sectors.

“With revenues in the tens of billions, Apple and Samsung are slugging it out for global brand supremacy and are vying with each other to create strong ‘customer love’ for their brands,” adds Haigh. “However, there are other brands in the Global 500 that though they may never challenge the brand value giants, are nonetheless extremely powerful and well-loved.”

Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari emerged as the brand with the highest brand rating overall, despite having a much smaller enterprise value at $3.6bn. It outperformed rival brands BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Lexus and Audi.

Ferrari was followed by Google, Coca-Cola, PwC and Hermes in the brand rating ranking.

The brand rating takes into account additional financial metrics including net margins, average revenue per customer, marketing and ad spend, and qualitative measures such as brand affection and loyalty.

“As the Global 500 powerfully demonstrates, customer expectations of brands are much higher than ever as trust becomes a critical business issue in a time of increased economic uncertainty,” concludes Haigh. “To fulfil such expectations, brand owners must continue to innovate whilst at the same time deliver quality with value, choice with social responsibility and sustainability with growth.”