Amazon named most valuable brand for 2021

The ranking, which is based on online interviews with four million consumers for 18,000 brands in 51 markets, found that there was a 42% increase in the value of the top 100 brands – four times the study’s average over the past 15 years.

Apple was the second highest ranked brand in the ranking, rising 74% in value between 2020 and 2021 and worth a total $612bn.

Google ($458bn), Microsoft ($410bn) and WeChat owner Tencent ($241bn) rounded out the rest of the top five brands.

Facebook ($226bn), Alibaba ($197bn), Visa ($191bn), McDonald’s ($155bn) and MasterCard ($113bn) also made the top 10.

US brands accounted for 56 of the top 100 and were the fastest growing, rising 46% year-on-year.

European brands accounted for 8% of the top 100, down from 20% a decade ago, while Chinese brands were 14% of the top 100.

Five brands more than doubled their value between 2020 and 2021: Pinduoduo, Meituan, Moutai and TikTok from China, and Tesla from the US.

There were also 13 new entrants in the top 100 ranking, including Zoom, Nvidia and AMD, and Spotify.

Nathalie Burdet, chief marketing officer at Kantar, said: “2020-21 has been a record year for brand growth, and despite many facing a difficult year, our research has again proven that strong brands deliver superior shareholder returns, are more resilient and recover more quickly.

“With global ecommerce growing from 12% to 15% of all sales in 2020, it has been a positive year for brands involved in that value chain – from the retailers through to the couriers.”