US companies continue to dominate the world’s top brands with Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) the most valuable by some distance according to new analysis by the European Brand Institute.
The iPhone maker comfortably outranked its tech rivals Google and Microsoft, which held on to the number two and three slots respectively.
The Institute estimated Apple’s name is worth €148.5bn, an 8% rise on this time last year. Google’s value jumped by 25% to €91.9bn and Microsoft rose 13% to €75.6bn.
Gerhard Hrebicek, EBI President, said overall the value of the top 100 brands rose by 13%.
Amazon was among the fastest growing brands and the online retailer increased its brand value by 54%, climbing a global rank of seven.
China Mobile held top spot in Asia with a value of €52.9bn, while French luxury goods giant LVMH was Europe’s most valuable with barnd worth €43.5 bn.
Volkswagen Group remained number one in Germany but it dropped four places globally to 28 after all of its emission scandal problems.
Chinese e-tailer Alibaba recorded the highest growth at 77%, followed by Facebook at 57% and Starbucks and Amazon.
Europe's best improvers were German engineer Bosch and BT Group (LON:BT.A), both of which increased their brand values by 28% with the UK telecoms giant jumping 20 places to number 80.