Top Brands in 2011 (KO, IBM, MSFT, GOOG, GE, MCD, INTC, AAPL, DIS, HPQ, NOK, CSCO, TM, AMZN, F, HMC, DE)

Brand consultancy Interbrand has issued its latest report on brand value, and while the top five did not change, a gap is opening between the fourth and fifth place finishers.  The largest annual gain among the top 100 brands totaled 58%, and was posted by Apple, which passed BMW, Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Mercedes-Benz, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), H-P, and Disney to jump to the 8th most valuable brand.

Google’s brand value increased by 27%, the third largest gain among the top 100 brands. The second largest gain was posted by Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), which jumped 32% and moved up from 36th on the list to 26th.

The biggest loser was Nokia, which fell -15% and from 8th to 14th in the league table. Another smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics, moved up from 2 places, from 19th, on the strength of a 20% jump in brand value.

Toyota, ranked 11th, is the top automaker, barely ahead of Mercedes-Benz, with BMW in third. Among US carmakers only Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) made the top 100 with its ‘Ford’ brand, at 50th place behind Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC) and Volkswagen.

Three brands made the list for the first time: Nissan, John Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE), and HTC Corp.

The Interbrand study ranks the top ten brands by dollar value in this order:

1. Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) – $71.86 billion
2. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) – $69.91 billion
3. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) – $59.09 billion
4. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) – $55.32 billion
5. General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) – $42.81 billion
6. McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) – $35.59 billion
7. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) – $35.22 billion
8. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) – $33.5 billion
9. Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) – $29.02 billion
10. Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) – $28.48 billion

Paul Ausick