Amazon Surpasses Google, Apple As Most Valuable Brand

Amazon is officially the world’s most valuable brand, valued at $315.5 billion, according to a newly-released global ranking.

Apple comes in second at $309.5 billion, and Google comes in third at $309 billion. Amazon is up 52 percent from last year, noted a report by CNBC.

The rankings were released on Tuesday (June 11) and come via the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand ranking 2019, which is put together by the WPP research agency Kantar. Google had the number one spot last year, and along with Apple, has spent 12 years atop the list.

Doreen Wang, Kantar’s global head of BrandZ, said that the reason Amazon took the top spot was because of the different services it offered.

“Amazon’s phenomenal brand value growth of almost $108 billion in the last year demonstrates how brands are now less anchored to individual categories and regions. The boundaries are blurring as technology fluency allow brands, such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba, to offer a range of services across multiple consumer touchpoints,” she said.

As Amazon’s core business slows down, it has been investing a lot in new technologies like self-driving cars and airplanes, with its Amazon Air business. It recently bought online pharmacy PillPack for $753 million and it led a $575 million funding round for Deliveroo.

Other brands in the top 10 were McDonald’s, Visa and AT&T. Microsoft stayed in fourth place, but it was first in 2006 when the list began. Tech companies have always dominated the list, and this year Alibaba overtook Tencent as the most valuable Chinese brand. In all, there are 15 Chinese brands on the list of 100, including Xiaomi ($19.8 billion) and Meituan ($18.8 billion).

The chair of BrandZ, David Roth, said the key to being high on the list this year was a company that could offer multiple services.

“Brands need to understand the value this type of model can create and should embrace its approach to be successful in the future,” he said.