Ecommerce giants Amazon.com Inc and Alibaba Group have made it into the top 10 list of Brand Finance's 2017 Technology 100, its annual listing of the most valuable technology brands.
Amazon.com Inc placed third with a brand value of $106.4 billion, while Asian etailer Alibaba Group garnered the number 8 spot with $34.9 billion.
Former leader Apple Inc. fell to second place, with Google taking the top spot with a brand value of $109 billion.
The London-based consulting company said that Amazon's 53% growth in brand value almost gave it the lead this year.
'The firm is growing strongly as it continues to both reshape the retail market and to capture an ever larger share of it', it said.
Alibaba's brand value nearly doubled from last year, and it has risen four places in the listing.
'Alibaba has created a fair and open portal for small businesses and enterprises. Its success stems from the opportunities to both open up and simplify commerce for Chinese communities, particularly rural ones', Brand Finance commented.
The consulting firm calculated brand value using a multi-step process it dubbed the 'Royalty Relief Approach', which estimates the probable future sales of a given brand and calculates a royalty rate for the use of the brand, i.e. what the owner would have to pay to use it, assuming the brand was not already owned.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
