Samsung closing gap on Apple in brand stakes

Apple, which topped the list for the second year running, is valued at $87bn (£56.2), a 24 per cent increase on its value a year ago, according to the annual study. Its brand rating, however, weakened from AAA+ to AAA as its “more nimble” rival Samsung catches up.

Samsung, increased its value by 54 per cent to $58.8bn (£37.5bn) adding more than $20bn (£13bn) to its value in 12 months, according to the brand valuation firm.

BrandFinance claims that only Apple’s size enabled it to maintain its lead over Samsung. Apple’s recent performance has disappointed analysts and shares slipped following its results in January when it reported flat profit.

While sales of iPhone 5 did not reach the 50 million mark expected by analysts, Samsung’s Galaxy S3, became the most pre-ordered smart phone of all time last year.

David Haigh, BrandFinance CEO, says: “Brand is one of many intangible assets which drive profitable growth. Technology, contractual, human capital and customer intangibles as well as general goodwill all drive overall corporate value. With revenues in the tens of billions, Apple and Samsung are slugging it out for global brand supremacy and are vying with each other to create strong ‘customer love’ for their brands.”

The study also named Ferrari as the world’s “most powerful” brand in terms of intangible measures such as brand affection and loyalty. It has the highest brand rating in the Top 500, despite not being able to compete with the likes of Apple in terms of revenue.

The BrandFinance Global 500 analyses the performance of leading brands across all major B2C and B2B sectors in terms of revenue. It uses data from a number of sources including Bloomberg, annual reports and proprietary research by BrandFinance to calculate a brand rating on a scale ranging from AAA to D.