• by Tanya Gazdik , May 29, 2018

Tech brands continue to dominate, with Google and Apple maintaining the top spots in this year’s BrandZ Top 100 Most Global Brands.

Google grew 23% to $302.1 billion and Apple increased 28% to $300.6 billion. Eight out of the Top 10 are technology or tech-related brands. 

Amazon moved into the no.3 position ahead of Microsoft, growing +49% to $207.6 billion, while Tencent rose to no.5 ahead of Facebook (no.6) growing +65% in brand value to $179 billion, up three places from last year’s ranking. Rounding out the top 10 are Visa, McDonald’s, Alibaba and AT&T.

The total brand value of the BrandZ Top 100 grew by a record 21%, adding almost $750 billion to the ranking, now valued at $4.4 trillion. The study is carried out annually by WPP's marketing and brand consultancy Kantar Millward Brown,

Over the last 12 years, the composition of the top 100 brands has shifted from consumer brands to tech.  Tech-related brands account for over half (+56%) of the BrandZ Top 100’s brand value. 

Brands that are winning in the intelligence-led marketing era include businesses such as Amazon and Tencent who put the consumer at the heart of everything they do, says Doreen Wang, Kantar Millward Brown’s global head of BrandZ.

“These brands use technology to understand the needs of their consumers and apply these learnings to create an ecosystem of services that fulfill multiple needs, enabling a seamless consumer experience between platforms,” Wang says a release.

China accounts for the three fastest-rising brands as the country’s brands grow at double the pace of U.S. brands. This was the first year non-U.S. brands grew faster than U.S. brands. Fourteen Chinese brands appear in the Top 100 ranking compared to just one (China Mobile) in 2006. Other parts of the world, such as India and Indonesia, are also showing strong regional growth. The BrandZ Top 100 included seven Asian brands (excluding China), which grew +14% giving them a total brand value of $146 billion.

New U.S. brands to the list include telecoms brand Spectrum (no.27), Uber (no.81) and Instagram (no.91) 

This is also the first year that all categories in the BrandZ Top 100 reported growth. Retail is fastest-growing category at 35% growth

Toyota remains the most valuable global car brand in the 2018 annual BrandZTop 100 Most Valuable Global Brands for the fifth year in a row with a 5% increase in brand value to $29.9 billion. Tesla is the world’s fastest-growing auto brand, rising 60% with a brand value of $9.4 billion.

New to the ranking is Indian brand Maruti Suzuki at number 9 and Volkswagen at number 10. The total brand value of the Top 10 car brands grew 7%.