MAKES HISTORY: Amazon first to breast the $200-billion brand valuation mark

It was written. Amazon churned history by becoming the first brand in the world to breach a $200-billion valuation mark in Brand Finance’s Global (BFG) 500 list of ‘Most Valuable Brands’. 

The online colossus, led by Jeff Bezos, grew 17.5% to $220.8 billion, firmly entrenched on the very top as the world’s most valuable brand for a third consecutive year. 

In the BFG-500 listing, technology brands took home all the top five spots with Google, whose value rose by 11.9% to $159.7 billion, outdid Apple to claim albeit a slightly distant second place, trailing behind Amazon by a little more than $60 billion. 

On the other hand, Apple dropped 8.5% to $140.5 billion, pushing itself down to the third spot. On the fourth spot stood Microsoft, which dropped 2.1% to $117.1 billion, and on the fifth stood Samsung, which gained 3.5% in brand value and rose to $94.5 billion. 

Across the Atlantic, the iconic Shell, a British-Dutch company although counted as Dutch in Brand Finance’s rankings, came in at No. 23 with a value of $47.5 billion, up 12.3% year on year.

The top-ranking UK brand is Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four consulting majors, which rose one spot from last year to 66th, with a 2.1% high in brand value at $23.7 billion. 

Talking about the findings, David Haigh, Chief Executive of Brand Finance, said: “The disruptor of the entire retail ecosystem, the brand that boasts the highest brand value ever, Amazon continues to impress across imperishable consumer truths: value, convenience and choice.  Today, Amazon’s situation seems more than comfortable, but what will the roaring 20s hold in store?” 

Closer home, on the tech front, Tata Consultancy Services saw its brand value increase six-fold since 2010 to $13.5 billion in 2019 and was rated as the “fastest growing brand of the decade, positioning it among the Top 3 brands in IT services globally”.

Haigh attributed TCS’ achievement to  its “laser focus on fostering long-lasting partnerships with its customers”, and “making enduring and meaningful investments in the communities where it operates around the world”.

In addition, for the second year running, the report named TCS Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Gopinathan among the Top 100 Global CEOs worldwide according to the ‘Brand Guardianship Index’ that rates CEOs on how well they qualify as brand ambassadors, based on “marketing investments, growth in stakeholder equity, and business performance”.

In the tech space again, online marketplace eBay came in at the 234th spot with its brand value continuing to tank, declining 9% to $8.2 billion. The contrast with Amazon couldn’t have been sharper, with the Bezos behemoth spreading itself out from retail to AI, cloud computing, and digital streaming. 

Brand Finance’s top 10 includes two other icons: Facebook, coming  in at No. 7 and Huawei at No. 10. 

The brand report’s ranking uses, among others, a matrix of marketing investment, familiarity, loyalty, staff satisfaction, and corporate reputation to arrive at a financial measure of the value a brand gives to its owner.

A QUICK SNAPSHOT:

• Lidl and Aldi are the fastest-growing brands in retail, so e-commerce is no longer the lone way to success in the sector.
• Hammered by OTT competition and challenger brands, 4 out of 5 telecoms in ranking lost value, with AT&T registering the fastest and steepest fall — of 32%.
• There is widespread fear of a “brand bubble burst” as tech brands stare at reality check. Example: Failure to meet expectations cuts Uber’s value by a third while Tesla soars higher as the world’s fastest-growing brand.
• In the wake of the largest IPO in corporate history, Saudi Aramco is the ‘most valuable’ new entrant to the 2020 ranking, coming in at No. 24 globally.
• Ferrari stays right on top as the world’s ‘strongest brand’ with a Brand Strength Index (BSI) score of 94.1 out of 100 and an elite AAA+ rating.

About Brand Finance Group:

Set up in 1996 with the aim of “bridging the gap between marketing and finance”, Brand Finance is one of the world’s top independent brand valuation and strategy consultancies. Headquartered in London, Brand Finance is present in over 20 locations globally.Every year Brand Finance evaluates over 5000 brands across all sectors and geographies. The results, which are tabulated and published in the media, seek to raise “awareness of brands as valuable business assets, which must be managed and invested in”. Other Brand Finance studies include the Nation Brands 100, the Football 50, and the Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT).