Apple Named World's Most Valuable Brand for Fourth Year in a Row

Apple has once again been named the world's most valuable brand, marking its fourth consecutive year at the top, according to the newly released Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands report for 2025. The tech giant's brand value surged 28% to reach an estimated $1.3 trillion.

This 20th-anniversary edition of the Kantar report highlights a significant milestone: the Top 100 global brands collectively achieved a record total brand value. Kantar notes this growth has been largely driven by tech-enabled disruptor brands over the past two decades.

Following Apple in the rankings are other major technology players. Google secured the second position, with Microsoft at number three, Amazon at number four, and Nvidia, showing substantial growth, rounding out the top five. Nvidia was also recognized as one of the top risers in brand value year-over-year.


For Apple, this continued dominance underscores a remarkable trajectory. The company ranked 29th in the first Kantar BrandZ Global Top 100 report in 2006, just a year before the launch of the iPhone transformed the consumer technology landscape.

Here's a look at what Kantar had to say about Apple:

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In 2006, Apple was ranked 29th in the first Kantar BrandZ Global Top 100. In 2007, it released the iPhone—forever changing the Consumer Technology and Services Platforms category (not to mention brand marketing).

In the years that followed, the mobile phone market consolidated around two main premium standard-bearers: Apple and Samsung. Meanwhile, other tech brands faded in sales and cachet. Many consumers became willing to buy lower-cost TVs, PCs, and tablets—but top-flight smartphones remained high-margin, high-demand blockbusters for the category's leading brand names.


At the same time, smartphones enabled the rise of new services platform brands like Uber, Airbnb, and Meituan—thus hastening the disruption of industries like mobility, travel, and food delivery (not to mention media, entertainment, and a host of other brand categories ranked elsewhere in this report). When those services platforms won, the major mobile OS platforms like Apple and Android (Google) won, too—thanks to their taking a cut of all app-store revenues.

In the design realm, Samsung in particular developed a reputation for introducing innovative form factors, including the world's first folding phone. By most accounts, it remains the top phone brand in the world by market share.

In the 2010s, software features became just as important as hardware specs for driving smartphone brands' Meaningful Difference. A new camera lens might tempt consumers to switch ecosystems—but at the same time, these would-be defectors might be reluctant to give up their current ecosystem's messaging apps, photo editing suites, or facial recognition tools.

Indeed, as the years went on, consumers began to upgrade their phones less and less frequently. In response, Apple in particular bet big on services like cloud storage, fitness content, TV, and music streaming. It also introduced tablets, watches, and VR goggles. But smartphones—and smartphone services—continued to reign supreme.

Apple's smartphone ads have remained best-in-class as well, if less imbued with the "shock of the new" than its earlier PC and iPod campaigns. This is an inevitable by-product, perhaps, of Apple's journey from being the ultimate tech underdog to the most valuable brand of all time.
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Report Highlights
● Apple retains its top position for the fourth year with a brand value of $1.3 trillion, up 28%
Google (No.2), Microsoft (No.3), Amazon (No.4) and Nvidia (No.5) complete the Top 5
Nvidia, Huawei, VMware, Xiaomi and Instagram are the top risers, achieving more than 100% brand value growth
● ChatGPT is the highest new entry in the Top 100, followed by Stripe and Chipotle
● Outside the US, Sweden's Spotify re-enters the Top 100; India's Airtel is the fastest growing telecom brand in the world; Argentinian retailer Mercado Libre is the only Latin American brand in the
● Top 100 and Canada's RBC saw the biggest year-on-year brand value growth (43%) of any financial services brand
● Across 13 category rankings, retail continued its post-pandemic surge, with overall brand value growth up 48%.

Check out the full report at the link below!

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