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Apple has the most valuable brand in the world

Apple's share price may have taken a battering over the past year, but the value of its brand hasn't suffered at all, according to one brand consultancy.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Apple has taken the title as the world's most valuable brand, worth almost $100bn.

Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report has placed Apple in the top spot ahead of Google in a list of what it says are the world's top 100 global brands. 

The two tech titans bumped Coca-Cola from the top spot, where it has been placed ever since the US brand consultancy began producing the report in 2000.

The company says Apple's brand, which has climbed from 36th in 2000 and second last year, is now worth $98.3bn, based on the financial performance of products and services behind the brand as well as the brand's influence over consumer choice, and its ability to command a premium price — which appear to borne out by strong early sales of its new iPhone 5c and 5s devices, which sold nine million between them on the first weekend after going on sale, despite stock market jitters over the higher than expected price of the iPhone 5c.  

"Every so often, a company changes our lives — not just with its products, but with its ethos. This is why, following Coca-Cola's 13-year run at the top of best global brands, Apple now ranks number one," Jez Frampton, Interbrand's global CEO, said in a statement.

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Image: Interbrand

Tech companies dominated Interbrand's most valuable brand list, and it values the sector's overall value at $443 billion. With Google's brand value at $93.3 bn, it and Apple make up nearly half the technology sector's value, according to Interbrand.

Others in the top 10 include IBM, Microsoft, Samsung and Intel, while Amazon stands at 19 and Facebook is at 52. Cisco, HP and Oracle were also top 20 brands.

While many tech companies' brand value grew rapidly, Nokia's and BlackBerry's brands bucked the trend.

According to the report, Nokia, which ranked at 57 this year, suffered a decline in brand value of 65 percent and "experienced the largest decline in brand value in the history of best global brands", Interbrand said. Its brand value still stands at $7bn, however.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry vanished from the list, as did Yahoo!, which is in the middle of a major turnaround effort, led by its recently appointed CEO Marissa Meyer.

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