Apple slips into second place in 2018 'Most Valuable U.S Brands' list
Apple clung on to second place in Brand Finance's "U.S. 500 2018," ranking the most valuable U.S. brands, but saw itself eclipsed by a new leader -- Amazon.
While Apple's "brand value" rose 37 percent to $146.3 billion, that was only enough to keep it in place versus Amazon, which grew 42 percent to $150.8 billion. 2017's leader, Google, slipped to third as its brand value increased only 10 percent to $120.9 billion.
Brand Finance uses its own custom metrics to determine brand value. Although the company says its work meets ISO 10668 and 20671 standards established for a common comparison framework across studies.
In the long term Apple's performance represents a rebound. The company maintained absolute dominance between 2012 and 2016, but dipped sharply in 2017, allowing Google to win that year. In fact Apple, Amazon, and Google were all neck-and-neck, if still handily beating out fourth- and fifth-place rivals AT&T and Facebook.
2018 saw AT&T change spots with Facebook for the first time, possibly a reflection of the omnipresence of Facebook in daily life for many people in the U.S. and abroad, as well as fluctuations in the domestic cellular, TV, and internet markets.
Apple recently lost ground in a pair of well-known industry rankings. It slipped to fourth place in the 2018 Fortune 500, while CEO Tim Cook dropped from 53rd to 96th on Glassdoor charts of the most popular CEOs among their workers.
The company is still doing extremely well financially however. In the March quarter alone it generated $61.1 billion in revenue, largely off 52.2 million in iPhone sales.
While Apple's "brand value" rose 37 percent to $146.3 billion, that was only enough to keep it in place versus Amazon, which grew 42 percent to $150.8 billion. 2017's leader, Google, slipped to third as its brand value increased only 10 percent to $120.9 billion.
Brand Finance uses its own custom metrics to determine brand value. Although the company says its work meets ISO 10668 and 20671 standards established for a common comparison framework across studies.
In the long term Apple's performance represents a rebound. The company maintained absolute dominance between 2012 and 2016, but dipped sharply in 2017, allowing Google to win that year. In fact Apple, Amazon, and Google were all neck-and-neck, if still handily beating out fourth- and fifth-place rivals AT&T and Facebook.
2018 saw AT&T change spots with Facebook for the first time, possibly a reflection of the omnipresence of Facebook in daily life for many people in the U.S. and abroad, as well as fluctuations in the domestic cellular, TV, and internet markets.
Apple recently lost ground in a pair of well-known industry rankings. It slipped to fourth place in the 2018 Fortune 500, while CEO Tim Cook dropped from 53rd to 96th on Glassdoor charts of the most popular CEOs among their workers.
The company is still doing extremely well financially however. In the March quarter alone it generated $61.1 billion in revenue, largely off 52.2 million in iPhone sales.
Comments
Over the last year Apple has been paying down technical debt around security, power resiliency, and feature completeness. They've weathered big PR storms. The glacial-pace release of critical new core components from their primary suppliers is seriously bogging them down. If Apple was truly firing on all cylinders and killing it with customers and product reviewers and was still #2 then we should worry. But they are not running in top gear, much less overdrive. Here they are, stuck in second gear, yet they are still breathing down Amazon's neck and have a massive load of fuel in the tank. Apple is in a great position, they just have to deliver. Soon.
How does one slip into second place when they didn't move?
You used it properly there...
Amazon's relationship with people is founded on "give me cheap products". Amazon users are generally not
passionate about the company which is why Amazon has failed at every premium product aimed at consumers.
It's not even close.
I know lots of households that won't buy any device from the [Apple/Android] eco-system, but they both will use Amazon. So the result is hardly surprising.
And yes, "clung" is a poor word choice.