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Google has surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable brand. Apple was formerly at the top of the rankings for over 3 years but has been overtaken in the 2014 published rankings. Google has grown 40% year over year and during the same period, Apple declined over 20%.

According to Millward Brown Optimor VP Oscar Yuan, it’s Apple’s lack of innovation and ground breaking new products that has lead to their decline, creating products that are merely evolutionary and no longer revolutionary. As Apple stagnates, Google on the other hand — with their Google X Labs ventures — is constantly moving forward. Look no further than ground breaking new products like Google Glass, Project Ara, self driving cars, and their WiFi balloons — is there any question how, or why Google took over Apple’s spot?

Giantic infographic of the results. Spoiler for size

Spoiler!

Other interesting tidbits

Share of life: Successful brands such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tencent and LinkedIn are more than just tools, they have become part of our lives. They offer new forms of communication that absorb people’s attention and imagination, while also helping them organise the rest of their lives at the same time. To gain more of our mind-space, brands such as Tencent and Google are even crossing categories. This trend also pushed No 1 Apparel brand Nike, a prime example of a brand seeking to become a share of life brand which offers services such as Nike+ that extend well beyond its functional raison d’etre.

Purpose beyond profit: Brands in business for reasons beyond the bottom line have a better chance of success in today’s world. For example, Pampers, which promotes mother and baby health issues, is at number 39 in the ranking and grew its value by 10% to $22.6 billion. Dove, which has continued to find huge success on the back of its ‘real women’ philosophy, has a brand value of $4.8 billion.

Apparel fastest growing category: The top 10 apparel brands grew in value by 29% to nearly $100 billion this year, outpacing cars (up 17%) and retail (up 16%). With brands such as Uniqlo, Nike and Adidas all recording double-digit increases in their valuation.

Technology service companies continue to climb: Not only are the top four brands technology companies, but so too are many of this year’s biggest risers. This year’s fastest climber was leading Chinese internet brand Tencent, up 97% to $54 billion and the number 14 position, followed by Facebook which rose 68% to $36 billion and took the No 21 spot. New brands in the Top 100 include Twitter at No 71 with a brand value of $14 billion and LinkedIn at No 78 worth $12 billion. Collectively, Technology companies make up 29% of the value of the BrandZ Top 100 ranking.

High value brands provide faster growth: An analysis of the BrandZ™ rankings as a ‘stock portfolio’ over the last nine years shows a highly favourable performance compared to a wider stock market index, the S&P500. While the value of the companies in the S&P500 index grew by 44.7%, the BrandZ™ portfolio grew by 81.1%, proving that companies with strong brands are able to deliver better value to their shareholders. A graphic is available here.

Brands from the Western World bounced back in 2014, with a greater proportion of both the number and value of brands within the top 100. This reflected the resilience of established brands and the breakthrough of new brands, as well as improved economic conditions. As a result, the number of brands from fast growing economies slipped in 2014.China, with 11 brands, continues to have the largest representation, two Russian brands, Sberbank and MTS, remain in the ranking, and mobile operator MTN is Africa’s representative for the third consecutive year.

http://www.millwardbrown.com/BrandZ/...al_Brands.aspx