Given the elusive nature of brands, determining a brand’s financial value is a difficult task.
Despite a brand’s intangibility, it’s hard to deny just how effective a strong one can be at boosting a company’s bottom line.
With this in mind, Brand Finance takes on the challenge of identifying the world’s most valuable brands in the world in its annual Global 500 Report. The graphic above, using data from the latest edition of the report, highlights the top 100 most valuable brands in 2022.
Editor’s note: This ranking measures the value of brands, which can be thought of as marketing-related intangible assets that create a brand identity and reputation in the minds of consumers. It attempts to measure this in financial terms, calculating what the brand is worth to the company that owns it. For more information on methodology, calculations, and sourcing, go to the bottom of this article.
A Full Breakdown of the Most Valuable Brands
With an increase of 35% since last year’s report, Apple retains its top spot on the ranking as the world’s most valuable brand, with a total brand value of $335.1 billion.
This is the highest brand value ever recorded in the history of the Global 500 report, which has been published each year since 2007.
As one of the world’s largest tech companies, Apple dominates the smartphone market, especially in the U.S., where more than 50% of operating smartphones are now an iPhone.
Here’s a complete list of the 100 most valuable brands according to the report:
RankBrand2022 Brand Value ($B)Country Sector
- Apple $355.1 United States Tech & Services
- Amazon $350.3 United States Retail & Consumer Goods
- Google $263.4 United States Media & Telecoms
- Microsoft $184.2 United States Tech & Services
- Walmart $111.9 United States Retail & Consumer Goods
- Samsung Group $107.3 South Korea Tech & Services
- Facebook $101.2 United States Media & Telecoms
- ICBC $75.1 China Banking & Insurance
- Huawei $71.2 China Tech & Services
- Verizon $69.6 United States Media & Telecoms
One other brand worth highlighting is TikTok. The social media company saw a 215% increase in its brand value year-over-year, making it the fastest-growing brand on the entire list.
Between 2019 and 2021, the platform saw its userbase skyrocket, growing from 291.4 million to 655.9 million in just two years. If this growth continues, TikTok could reach nearly one billion users by 2025, according to projections from Insider Intelligence.
Most Valuable Sectors
Over a third of the brands on the list fall into the tech and services sector. Combined, this category has a brand value of $2.0 trillion.
Over a third of the brands on the list fall into the tech and services sector. Combined, this category has a brand value of $2.0 trillion.
Sector Brand Value% of Top 100
- Tech & Services $2.0 trillion 36.8%
- Media & Telecoms $1.0 trillion 19.2%
- Retail & Consumer Goods $910 billion 16.8%
- Banking & Insurance $634 billion 11.7%
- Energy & Utilities $411 billion 7.6%
- Automobiles $400 billion 7.4%
- Healthcare $33 billion 0.6%
COVID-19 is partly the reason for this, as media consumption increased throughout the global pandemic. For example, in the first nine months of 2021, Snapchat’s daily usage grew by 77%. Despite increased traction with users, it’s worth noting the company is now feeling the sting as the real world competes for attention spans once again and advertisers begin to ghost the app due to recession jitters.
As pandemic restrictions fade out around the world, and murmurs of a global recession threaten global economic growth, next year’s report could see some big shifts in brand value.
When looking at where these brands are based, we see that the United States and China account for 73 of the top 100 brands on the ranking. Even more surprising—just six countries make up 94% of the list.
The growth of Chinese companies on the global stage is reflected in this visualization. As a point of comparison, a decade ago, only six Chinese companies made Brand Finance’s Top 100 ranking, and none of them were in the top 30 for brand value.
