No Surprise that Apple is now the World's Most Valuable Brand

On the latest Millward Brown BrandZ ’Global Top 100’ listing, Apple has overtaken Google by quite a significant margin. No doubt this has a lot to do with the phenomenal sales success of the iPad, as well as continuing strong retail performance across most divisions.

Our own household has slowly and steadily, not particularly deliberately, become rather Apple-fied. It started with iPods and iPhones, then a MacBook Pro or two, and now includes iMacs, iPads and Apple TV. I’m not saying that Apple necessarily make the perfect product in every category, but they do have an uncanny knack of getting the quality, aesthetics and usability just right. Sure there are some quirks here and there, but in each category we have an Apple product, it is significantly the best in that category - and usually for a variety of reasons. I’m certainly not the biggest fan of iTunes, but there is an easy convenience in syncing devices with iTunes and sharing media files. It’s a little suprising how far behind some of the previously dominant competitors have fallen - chiefly I suppose Sony and Nokia in their respective sectors.

Anyway, the top 20 most valuable brands for 2011 is as follows; (Percentage % Change vs 2010 in Parenthesis):

2011 Value in $ Millions