Content Provided By:

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Martin Guo
Editor-in-Chief, Kantar China Insights
[email protected]

With little sign of a slowdown in growth, Amazon has become the world’s most valuable brand, according to the 2019 BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking released today by WPP and Kantar at the New York Stock Exchange.

Amazon’s smart acquisitions, that have led to new revenue streams, excellent customer service provision and its ability to stay ahead of its competitors by offering a diverse eco-system of products and services, have allowed Amazon to continuously accelerate its brand value growth.  

Technology companies have led BrandZ’s Top 100 ever since its first global brand value ranking in 2006, when Microsoft took the top spot. Rising in brand value by an impressive 52% year-on-year to US$315.5 billion, Amazon moves ahead of Apple (No.2, $309.5 billion) and Google (No.3, US$309.0 billion) which both rose by a modest +3% and +2% respectively, to end the technology giants’ 12-year dominance.

In the Top 10, Facebook remained at No.6 while, for the first time, Alibaba overtook Tencent and became the most valuable Chinese brand, moving up two places to No.7 and growing +16% to US$131.2 billion. Tencent dropped three places to No.8, declining by 27% to US$130.9 billion year-on-year, in what BrandZ ascribes to a more volatile world; one in which brands must continually anticipate evolving consumer needs and expectations.

The BrandZ Top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019

Rank 2019	Brand	Category	Brand value 2019 (US$BN)	Brand value change	Rank 2018
1	Amazon	Retail	315.505	52%	3
2	Apple	Technology	309.527	3%	2
3	Google	Technology	309.000	2%	1
4	Microsoft	Technology	251.244	25%	4
5	Visa	Payments	177.918	22%	7
6	Facebook	Technology	158.968	-2%	6
7	Alibaba	Retail	131.246	16%	9
8	Tencent	Technology	130.862	-27%	5
9	McDonald’s	Fast Food	130.368	3%	8
10	AT&T	Telecom Providers	108.375	2%	10

Despite the economic uncertainty surrounding the US and China trade tariffs, almost a third of a trillion dollars (US$328 billion) of value was added to the BrandZ Top 100 Global ranking over the last year, giving it a combined brand value of US$4.7 trillion – roughly the combined GDP of Spain, Korea and Russia.

Much of this value is derived from consumer technology brands appearing in the ranking which combined are now worth in excess of US$1 trillion. Examples include newcomers Xiaomi (No.74, US$19.8 billion), a Chinese mobile handset brand that also uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect smart devices and is experiencing rapidly growing demand in countries such as Russia, India and Malaysia. Another Chinese brand, Meituan (No.78, US$18.8 billion) is seen as a category-disrupting consumer technology platform offering everything from food delivery, room bookings and ride-hailing to bike rentals. Meanwhile, Uber is leveraging the ecosystem model and expanding into food and other delivery services, while Haier (No.89, US$16.3 billion), the world’s largest home appliances and IoT platform is committed to co-creating an open ecosystem brand in the IoT era with its customers and partners.

Compared with a year ago, the number of Chinese brands in global Top 100 increased from 14 to 15. 

2019 Global Ranking	Change from 2018	Brand	2019 Brand Value (billion US$)	Brand Value Change (%)
7	↑2	Alibaba	131.246	+ 16%
8	↓3	Tencent	130.862	- 27%
27	↓6	China Mobile	39.322	- 15%
29	↓7	ICBC	38.432	- 16%
35	↓1	Moutai	33.924	+ 6%
40	↑3	Ping An	29.470	+ 13%
47	↑1	Huawei	26.908	+ 8%
59	↓10	China Construction Bank	22.709	- 4%
63	↓22	Baidu	20.879	- 22%
66	↓7	JD.com	20.609	- 2%
71	New	Didi Chuxing	20.041	New
74	New	Xiaomi	19.805	New
78	New	Meituan	18.760	New
82	↓13	Agricultural Bank of China	18.199	-5%
89	New	Haier	16.272	New

As other social media platforms face challenges in terms of trust and desirability, Instagram (No.44, US$28.2 billion), now with over 1 billion users worldwide, emerged as this year’s fastest riser climbing 47 places with a massive +95% growth in brand value. Lululemon, the yoga-inspired, athletic apparel company was the second fastest riser, stretching to +77% growth year-on-year to US$6.92 billion.

Other top risers, such as Netflix (+65%, No.34, US$34.3 billion), Amazon (+52%, US$315.5 billion) and Uber (+51%, No.53, US$24.2 billion) reflect the rapidly changing, technology-driven world in which consumers are placing more value on richer brand experiences.

Doreen Wang, Kantar’s Global Head of BrandZ, comments: “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. Using their consumer experience and expertise, these brands are crossing over into the business services sector, creating new opportunities for brand growth. Disruptive ecosystem models are flourishing in regions such as Asia, where consumers are more technology-enabled and where brands are integrating themselves into every aspect of people’s daily lives.”

Key trends highlighted in this year’s BrandZ Global Top 100 study include:

• ​Luxury is the fastest growing category (+29%) followed by Retail (+25%), fuelled by the shifting preferences to digital channels from GenY and GenZ consumers.
• Technology, Finance and Retail categories dominate, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total value of brands.
• Nine newcomers appear in the Top 100, predominantly driven by Chinese and US technology brands with disruptive business models including Dell Technologies, Xbox, Haier, Meituan and Xiaomi.
• Asian brands increase their presence with 15 Chinese, three Indian and one Indonesian brand making the ranking among a total of 23 from the region, including LIC and Tata Consultancy Services.
• A new generation of brands emerge – GenZ brands (created after 1996) are miles ahead in growth rate as they add more value to the ranking per year of existence – almost four times more than brands created in the millennial era of 1977 to 1995. A total of 23 GenZ brands appear in the Top 100 with an average age of 16 years compared to 18 millennial brands averaging 33 years.
• Sustainable brands –Brand owners are demonstrating the importance of improving and reinforcing consumer perceptions that they are ‘responsible’ through social, environmental and corporate initiatives.

We will host a webinar on “Turning Disruption into Brand Momentum in a volatile marketing world” on the 27th June. Don’t miss your chance to take advantage of these insightful new learnings from Kantar and BrandZ’s most-experienced thought leaders from around the world. Please click here for more information.

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report and rankings, and a great deal more brand insight for key regions of the world and 14 market sectors are available online here. The Global report, rankings, charts, articles and more can also be found via the BrandZ app. The BrandZ app also contains the same features and functionality for all BrandZ regional reports and is free to download for Apple IOS and all Android devices from www.brandz.com/mobile or search for BrandZ in the respective iTunes or Google Play app stores.