Google Is World’s Most Valuable Brand at $246 Billion

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 11:20AM EST · Published Jun 6, 5:23AM EDT

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Consultancy BrandZ came out with its annual list of the 100 most valuable brands. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google led the list at $246 billion.

Google was followed by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) at $234 billion, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) at $143 billion. Amazon was fourth at $139 billion. In terms of market capitalization, the four are the most valuable public companies.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) followed the tech companies with a brand value of $130 billion.

The consultancy said in a press release:

This year, the total brand value of the Top 100 brands has risen +8% to $3.64 trillion, compared with +3% in 2016, while the number of brands worth more than $100bn has increased from six to nine. The total brand value of the ranking is up +152% from 2006 (its first year), as its composition has shifted towards innovative, consumer-focused technology brands with huge reach and brand-building power. The BrandZ Top 10 in 2017 are worth almost as much as the entire Top 100 in 2006 ($1.42tn vs $1.44tn), and have grown +249% in value, compared with +152% for the Top 100 as a whole.

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It added:

The 2017 ranking shows that the balance of power has truly tipped towards the consumer-focused technology brands that develop ecosystems that cater to many needs, simplifying an increasingly complex world. More than half of the Top 100’s total brand value is contributed by technology-related brands (a definition that includes telecoms and online retailers), up from a third in 2006, and these have grown +16% in the last year compared with +4% for non-tech brands.

The BrandZ Top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands 2017

Rank 2017	Brand	Category	Brand value ($M)	Change	Rank 2016
1	Google	Technology	245,581	+7%	1
2	Apple	Technology	234,671	+3%	2
3	Microsoft	Technology	143,222	+18%	3
4	Amazon	Retail	139,286	+41%	7
5	Facebook	Technology	129,800	+27%	5
6	AT&T	Telecom providers	115,112	+7%	4
7	Visa	Payments	110,999	+10%	6
8	Tencent	Technology	108,292	+27%	11
9	IBM	Technology	102,088	+18%	10
10	McDonald’s	Fast food	97,723	+10%	9

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.