High-Tech Tops The World's Top 100 Brands

Interbrand, one of the world's foremost brand consultancies, has come out with a list of the 'Best Global Brands' of 2012. Coca-Cola is the winner, with Apple and IBM a close second and third, having grown respectively by 129% and 8%.

Next come Google (+26%), Microsoft (-2%), General Electric, McDonald's, Intel (+12%), Samsung (+40%) and Toyota. That's six out of the top ten brands that are devoted consumer electronics. While the most spectacular growth comes without a doubt from Apple (+129%), the company's fiercest competitor, Samsung, comes in second at 40%. The strides Samsung has made over the past year can be explained by its dominant position on the smartphone market, with 15 to 16% market share last June (the Galaxy S3, released on June 9, has a good deal to do with this).

Amazon may be 'only' number 20 on the list, but its 46% growth over 2012 speaks for itself, upheld by the stellar sales of its Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch eReader/tablets (the Kindle Fire has the second largest share of the global tablets market, after the iPad).


Interbrand's methodology consists in analysing the various factors that give the brands their value: the company's financial performance and the brand's role in influencing the customer's decision to buy the company's products or services and generate profits for the company.