Amazon Retains Position As World's Most Valuable Brand: Survey

(RTTNews) - Amazon.com Inc. has retained its position as the world's most valuable brand with the e-commerce giant's value growing by a third from last year, according to an annual survey by consultancy firm Kantar.

According to the BrandZ Global Top 100 Most Valuable Brands 2020 rankings released by advertising group WPP and Kantar, Amazon's value grew 32 percent this year to $415.9 billion and helped cement its position as the world's most valuable brand.

In second position was Apple, which maintained its ranking from last year. The tech giant's brand value rose 14 percent to $352.2 billion.

Microsoft was ranked as the third most valuable brand globally, with a 30 percent surge in its value to $326.5 billion. The software giant pushed Google to the fourth spot this year. Google's brand value increased 5 percent from last year to reach $323.6 billion.

The increase in Microsoft's brand value reflected growth of its cloud-enabled workplace ecosystem that incorporates Office365 and Microsoft Teams, allowing people to maintain 'business as usual' during the lockdown, the report noted.

According to Kantar, the world's most valuable brands saw their total brand value increase by 5.9 percent this year despite the economic, social and personal impacts of COVID-19. Prior to the global pandemic, total brand value of the top 100 brands was projected to grow by 9 percent.

This year, the total brand value of the top 100 global brands reached $5 trillion, equivalent to the annual GDP of Japan.

The ranking is based on consumer insights from over 3.8 million consumers around the world, covering more than 17,500 different brands in 51 markets.

U.S. brands represented more than half of the top 100 brands, while Asian brands represented a quarter of the brands and includes seventeen Chinese brands and two Japanese brands.

Alibaba was ranked as the world's sixth most valuable brand, with a 16 percent increase in brand value to $152.5 billion. The Chinese e-commerce giant was the most valuable Chinese brand, while Internet services giant Tencent stood in the seventh position with 15 percent growth in brand value to $151 billion.

Chinese short video-sharing app TikTok entered the Top 100 ranking for the first time and was ranked seventy ninth.