Brand Finance has just released its annual Global 500 ranking, which ranks the world’s top 500 brands by brand value. Unsurprisingly, the US dominates the ranking, with just under 50% of the aggregate brand valuation being American. But China is catching up fast, with 19%. Combined, the two countries comprise two-thirds of the global brand valuation.
As one might expect, all the big technology firms are right up there in the top positions, reflecting their relative importance in everyday life in the modern world. At a sectoral level, tech is the most valuable sector, comprising almost 15% of the total, with retail a close second on 14%. And the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic resulted in media brands continuing to be highly ranked again, as consumers increasingly turned to those brands for connection and entertainment during the pandemic. But the pandemic wasn’t the only reason that media brands did so well. There is a constant battle going on between the various media brands for share of the consumers’ eyes and ears. In this context, content is key, for without decent content to steam into consumers’ homes and mobile devices, the battle is lost before it is ever fought.
Within tech, Apple remains the world’s most valuable brand, with a record valuation of more than $355bn, closely followed by Amazon on $350bn and Google on $263bn. This reflects the market capitalisation ranking of these companies (or its parent in the case of Google) on the US equity markets, though their brand values are significantly lower than their market capitalisation. For example, Apple’s market capitalisation of $2.78-trillion is almost eight times its brand valuation.
In a similar vein, Tesla is relatively lowly rated, only coming in at number 28, with a brand value of $46bn. This is only about 5% of Tesla’s market capitalisation of $850bn and highlights the yawning gap between a ridiculously rarefied market capitalisation that is largely the result of market hysteria and a more fundamental brand valuation. Toyota is the highest rated automaker, with a brand valuation of $64bn, followed by 15th-placed Mercedes-Benz on a $60bn brand valuation. Tesla’s market capitalisation is now as much as the combined market capitalisation of the nine largest global automakers, including traditional giants such as VW and Toyota. And yet, Tesla comprises less than 1% of global car sales
After tech, retail is the second most important sector, having overtaken banking last year. Amazon continued to do exceptionally well from the pandemic, as the world’s leading e-commerce supplier. But the traditional “bricks and mortar” retailers are fighting back and developing their own e-commerce solutions. And within that broad e-commerce space is the vitally important logistics arena, for without a proper logistics offering that takes product to where and when the consumer wants it, the rest of the effort will have been in vain.
Walmart, the world’s largest conventional retailer, is ranked No 5, with a brand valuation of $112bn. This compares with its equity market capitalisation of $381bn.
Facebook is the top-ranked media brand, coming in at No 7 with a brand valuation of $101bn, followed by 13th-placed WeChat on $62bn. New entrant TikTok came straight in at No 18, with a brand valuation of $59bn and earned the accolade of world’s fastest-growing brand. Disney came in one place behind TikTok on $57bn.
Old-fashioned favourites Marlboro and Coca-Cola came in at positions 42 and 44 respectively, on brand valuations of $36bn and $35bn.
The successful development of Sars-CoV-2 vaccines resulted in pharmaceuticals being named the fastest-growing industry. Johnson & Johnson is the most valuable brand, with a valuation of $13bn. Pfizer comes in second on $6.3bn and new entrant AstraZeneca is third on $5.6bn.
Tourism, hospitality and aviation sectors remained below their prepandemic valuations, but there are encouraging signs that this is changing rapidly for the better.
Disappointingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, there are no African brands in the Global 500, though the largest African brand MTN, with a brand valuation of $4bn, just fails to make it by a whisker.
• Gilmour is an independent investment analyst with Salmour Research.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.