Interbrand has named Apple as the world’s most valuable brand for the third year running, estimating that it increased its total value by 43% in the past year to hit $170B. The company bases its estimates on a mix of the financial performance of the company, its ability to influence purchase decisions and the degree of brand loyalty it enjoys.

Google again took second place, seeing its value climb by 12% to $120B. Tech companies made up half of the top 10, Microsoft at #4, IBM at #5 and Samsung retaining 7th place. A similar brand equity ranking by Millward Brand back in May also gave Apple and Google the top two slots.

Apple first knocked Coca-Cola out of Interbrand’s top slot in 2013. It has also topped Fortune’s list of the world’s most admired companies for eight consecutive years.

Via The Verge

While still behind Coca-Cola, which retained its No. 1 spot from last year’s report, Apple is one of Interbrand’s top risers as the No. 2 brand in its 2012 Best Global Brands Report. Apple sits just above IBM, Google, and Microsoft with a brand value of $76, 568 million—up 129 percent from last year’s study. You can see a full list of brands that made this year’s top 100 list here and a chart of Apple’s growth below:

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The Wall Street Journal today shows that the value of Apple’s brand varies greatly depending on who is taking the survey. Apple’s brand may be worth as much as $183 billion, according to an earlier Millward Brown study. The study’s results greatly vary from a separate Interbrand study, which valued the company at less than a fifth of that value and half of the value of Microsoft’s brand.

The most valuable brand in the world, according to WPP PLC’s Millward Brown, is Apple Inc., worth $183 billion—nearly a third of the company’s market capitalization of $581 billion.

Omnicom Group Inc.’s Interbrand, however, judges Apple’s brand as worth only $33.5 billion, or eighth, behind such names as MicrosoftCorp. (ranked third at $59 billion), International Business MachinesCorp. and Coca-Cola Co. (first at $71.9 billion). Interbrand notes its estimate of Apple’s brand value has risen.

Why such a big difference?

“The value of brand is both art and science,” says Allen Adamson, a managing director of Landor Associates, a branding firm owned by WPP. “It’s simple in theory but hard to pin down in reality. It’s really about how much would a consumer pay for a caramel colored soda versus how much they would pay for a Coke.”

If you think about PCs, how much would someone pay for a similarly spec’d Microsoft PC Ultrabook vs. a MacBook Air? Usually much less. The same goes for tablets—even though Apple’s prices and margins are smaller than phones or PCs. Apple’s reputation is what allows it to grab such huge margins in its hardware.

Yet, Interbrand ranks Microsoft at double of Apple’s brand. I would re-run the numbers if I were Interbrand. Millward Brown’s numbers are below:

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