By Matteo Allievi
(Reuters) -Apple has become the first brand to cross $1 trillion in brand value, a 15% jump from last year, while chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)'s value has nearly tripled, a global ranking by Kantar's BrandZ showed on Wednesday.
The iPhone maker retained its crown as the world's most valuable brand for the third straight year in 2024, followed by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s Google at $753 billion and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) at $713 billion, Kantar said.
Earlier this week, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) unveiled new AI features, which are expected to rekindle demand for iPhones and reverse a sales decline for its biggest-selling product due to choppy consumer spending and resurgent tech rivals.
"Apple has been consistently able to deliver products, services and messaging, which has closely resonated with the consumers, creating a strong fan-following for the brand," Counterpoint analyst Varun Mishra said.
With a market capitalization of $3.18 trillion, Apple is ahead of AI chip powerhouse Nvidia at $2.97 trillion.
Surfing a wave of AI enthusiasm and a boom in chip demand, Nvidia has for the first time entered Kantar's list of top 10 most valuable brands in the world.
"Nvidia, led by the Godfather of AI Jensen (Huang) and the creator of this AI Revolution, is now a household brand as its GPU chips are the new gold and oil in the tech world," said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Its brand value jumped to over $200 billion from a year earlier, making Nvidia the sixth most valuable brand, Kantar said.
"What really sets Nvidia apart is the faith that retail and institutional investors alike have in the firm's centrality to the biggest disruptive narratives in tech," the consulting company said.
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), which offers AI-powered cloud services, also made its debut in Kantar's top 10 at the ninth place. Its brand value jumped 58% to $145 billion.
Kantar said its research covered over 4.3 million consumer interviews in 532 categories, and 21,000 different brands in 54 markets.