Apple keeps 'world's top brand' crown, Vuitton and Dior perform strongly

The new ranking — which combines “rigorously analysed financial data, with extensive brand equity research” — shows that the total brand value of the world’s top 100 brands stands at $6.9 trillion for 2023. 

Despite a 20% drop in the overall index vs 2022, the top 100 retains its long-term growth trajectory, posting 47% growth compared to the pre-Covid (2019) level.

Apple has a brand valuation of $880 billion and “has proven resilient in the face of testing market conditions, justifying premium prices with positive perceptions, and proving that meaningful, different and salient brands are best placed to weather global economic disruption”.

Google and Microsoft complete the top three. 

They’re followed by Amazon in fourth place, although its $468 billion value is well down on last year’s $705 billion. 

The rest of the top 10 are McDonald’s, Visa, Tencent, Louis Vuitton (whose value is broadly flat at $124.8. billion), MasterCard and Coco-Cola.

Kantar also said that Shein joined the top 100 for the first time this year at number 70.

And it called out the luxury sector saying “luxury brands retained their allure even with steady, incremental price increases”. Louis Vuitton, the only luxury brand in the global top 10, actually rose two places. 

And Dior is the fastest-growing brand in the category, increasing its brand value by 9% to $11.4bn. 

“The category’s strong overall performance highlights the excellent job luxury brands are doing at leveraging their distinctive assets to drive higher demand and pricing power, despite economic challenges,” we’re told.

Martin Guerrieria, Head of Kantar BrandZ, said: “This year’s results – despite the fall in aggregate value – are, in fact, a continuation of the long-term growth trend for brands, which began following the global financial crisis of 2008 and continued up until the start of the pandemic in 2020. While the market has proved volatile and been greatly impacted by global macroeconomics, consumers’ view of brands has proved far more stable – the most valuable brands in the world remain as highly regarded as ever.

“The lessons for brand owners and marketers remain clear; effective marketing investment and long-term thinking are vital to your business’ growth prospects. Those brands consistently investing in establishing strong consumer connections are now much better placed to navigate the current volatile conditions and deliver a greater degree of resilience for their shareholders.”