Kantar Brandz 2022 report finds Apple the world’s most valuable brand

The Kantar Brandz 2022 report is out, and Apple retook the No. 1 slot as the world’s most valuable brand, for the first time since 2015.

The ranking is based on the actual value of the brand name itself – in other words, how much of a premium a company is able to charge thanks to perceptions of the brand …

The answer in Apple’s case, says Kantar, is a little under a billion dollars.

With a 55% increase in brand value, Apple rose one spot to secure the number one spot on Kantar Brand global rankings for the first time since 2015. With a total brand value of $947,062 million, Apple is now the clear global leader in brand value, thanks to its strength across its hardware, software, and services offerings.

The market intelligence firm said that Apple was an example of two trends this year: luxury and tech.

The value of top brands in Luxury and Consumer Technology increased 45% and 46% respectively, setting the high mark this year for category growth. The collected value of top banks and cars brands also grew faster than the overall BrandZ Top 100 with growth in the cars category most notably driven by Tesla, which grew year-on-year by more than 78%.

Indeed, three of the companies to make the biggest gains these year were luxury brands.

The luxury jewellery brand grew 88% in 2022, a rise that was fueled by strong demand for top-tier luxury goods. Alongside fellow Top Risers Hermès and Louis Vuitton, Cartier is seen as an especially smart buy when it comes to offering products that retain their worth over time.

US brands made up more than half of the Kantar Brandz 2022 rankings.

For the second straight year, American brands account for 56 out of the world’s Top 100 brands. American brands’ share of the Top 100’s total value, meanwhile, has increased by 24%. This year, number of Chinese brands in the Top 100 fell by four, to 14, while the number of European brands on the list held steady at 18. Meanwhile, brands from Argentina and Saudi Arabia joined the Global Top 100 for the first time.

Kantar said that what employees expect from their companies has significantly increased in a tight labor market.

These days, some of the most important constituents for purpose-driven marketing aren’t a brand’s consumers, but rather its own employees. Thanks to tight labor markets in many major economies, businesses are having to work overtime to convince staff that their workplaces are a good long-term commitment. In short, brands today must demonstrate that their corporate cultures are as Meaningfully Different as their products.

In part, that means offering more in the in way of scholarships, bonuses, and remote work options. But it also means proactively addressing employees’ more idealistic concerns around issues like sustainability, diversity, and inclusion. More and more, employees don’t just prefer that their workplaces’ policies align with their personal ethics they are demanding that this be so, and they are doing so quite publicly.

Indeed, in the past year some of the most notable activist campaigns targeting brands have come from inside those brands’ own organisations.

Apple was followed in the top 10 by Google and Amazon.

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Amazon
4. Microsoft
5. Tencent
6. McDonalds
7. Visa
8. Facebook
9. Alibaba
10. Louis Vuitton

Apple of course regularly tops these types of brand rankings, recently doing so in January’s Brand Finance Global 500 index.

You can download the full Kantar Brandz 2022 report by registering.

Photo: Surasak_Ch/Unsplash

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.