Google becomes second most valuable brand (guess who’s first)
It’s no secret Google has been setting the world on fire these past couple of years, introducing great new web-based apps and technology, advancing Android, and introducing exciting new products like ChromeBooks and Google Glass. The Mountain View company’s stock performance certainly attests to that much, with Google currently trading at nearly 890 points with a market cap of 295.08 billion.
That type of performance has convinced research firm MarketingWeek to upgrade Google’s brand value rating. The company passed up IBM to become the second most valuable brand in the world, with a 5% increase from 2012’s brand value of $107.8 billion to $113.6 billion this year. Of course, second isn’t first — so who, exactly, is beating out Google for the coveted first place spot?
Oh, come on, you didn’t expect it to be anyone but Apple, did you? Despite the bitten fruit company trailing in both PC and mobile market share, Apple is still regarded as the world’s most valuable brand. There’s good reason for that, of course — they also have a great deal of brand loyalty, and Apple’s ridiculous price mark-ups means the company makes a ton of money on each device sold.
And despite not being able to best Microsoft in PC market share and being supplanted by Android in the smartphone space, Apple still holds considerable ground in tablets and MP3 players. We’re sure none of this means much to Google right now, though — second place or not, they still rake in a whole lot of money. It’ll be interesting to see how these numbers look one year from now when even more innovative Google products are introduced and available. Check out this PDF file for the full numbers.