Apple is the world’s most valuable brand

• Apple caps record-breaking month with the highest brand value in history, $ 128.3 b
• Analysis shows Lego has replaced Ferrari as the most powerful
• Twitter is the fastest growing brand; its brand value has nearly tripled in a year

Employees jump to celebrate during the opening of a new Apple Store in Chongqing municipality in China – Reuters/File photo

Every year, leading brand valuation and strategy consultancy Brand Finance puts thousands of the world’s top brands to the test. They are evaluated to determine which are the most powerful, and the most valuable.   Apple sets another record Brand Finance’s analysis combines the information on a brand’s strength with financial data, to calculate its commercial value. Apple comes out on top. Though not quite on a par with Lego in terms of brand strength, Apple still has a very powerful brand. What sets it apart is ability to monetise that brand. Apple has a remarkable knack for using its brand to popularise and hence monetise existing technology, as it did so successfully first with the mp3 player, smart phone and later the tablet. Critics have been silenced by the success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Consumers have snapped latest models in their droves, helping Apple set records for quarterly profits ($ 18 billion) and company value ($ 710 billion). Brand Finance Managing Director David Haigh says, “The Apple brand is worth $ 128 billion. That value is huge not just in its own terms but also as a proportion of Apple’s record-breaking corporate valuation. It goes to show how valuable brands are as business assets and how important it is to manage them well.”   An employee sits in front of a poster advertising the New iPad at an Apple dealership in Wuhan, Hubei province in China - Reuters/File photo     The world’s most valuable brands ‘Everything is Awesome’ for Lego Lego is the world’s most powerful brand. It scores highly on a wide variety of measures on Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index such as familiarity, loyalty, promotion, staff satisfaction and corporate reputation. Lego is a uniquely creative and immersive toy; children love the ability to construct their own worlds that it provides. In a tech-saturated world, parents approve of the back-to-basics creativity it encourages and have a lingering nostalgia for the brand long after their own childhoods. The Lego Movie perfectly captured this cross-generational appeal. It was a critical and commercial success, taking nearly $ 500 million since its release a year ago. It has helped propel Lego from a well-loved, strong brand to the world’s most powerful.   The world’s most powerful brands #FastestGrowingBrand Twitter is the fastest growing brand; it has almost tripled its brand value in a year, increasing from $ 1.5 billion in early 2014 to $ 4.4 billion now. Fellow tech giants Baidu and Facebook have also grown strongly, by 161% and 146% respectively. The three appear to be more effectively managing the transition to mobile advertising than other tech players such as Google, boosting expectations of the financial potential of their brands.   The world’s fastest growing brands Brand Finance is the world’s leading brand valuation and strategy consultancy, with offices in over 15 countries. We provide clarity to marketers, brand owners and investors by quantifying the financial value of brands. Drawing on expertise in strategy, branding, market research, visual identity, finance, tax and intellectual property, Brand Finance helps clients make the right decisions to maximise brand and business value and bridges the gap between marketing and finance.