Coca-Cola tops list of best 100 global brands

Coca-Cola retains its top position as the world's most valuable brand, according to Interbrand's just-released annual list of the 'Best 100 Global Brands'.

The list showed some surprise entries including seven new brands and many more jumping up the list beating all-time favourites. Technological brands, especially internet-based, have faired positively in the last year and jumped on the list.

IBM, by expanding its services and transitioning out of production, moved up to No 2, knocking Vista-burdened Microsoft to third, said Andy Bateman, CEO of Interbrand New York. GE was fourth, boosted by its ecomagination communications programme, and Nokia came fifth.

The brands with the biggest growth in the past 12 months were Google up 43 per cent; Apple up 24 per cent; Amazon up 19 per cent; retailer Zara up 15 per cent; and Nintendo up 13 per cent. Only one brand in the top 20, Citi, saw its brand value fall.

Almost all of the top 10 slots have remained occupied by the same companies, except Google that jumped to the number 10 spot – 10 notches up from last year's number 20 position. So far no brand from the Middle East has made it to the list.

Swedish apparel brand H&M became the highest new entry at number 22, followed by Blackberry at number 73. Five more new brands, including Ferrari, Giorgio Armani, JW Marriott, FedEx and Visa all just made into the top 100 list in the 90-100 slot.

Bateman said although retailers have generally suffered this year, Zara leveraged technology by quickly relaying scanning data from purchases to production in order to keep hot inventory in stock. Apple's iPhone was a massive success and perhaps a halo for its computer business. Apple tallied roughly $4,000 (Dh14,694) of revenue per square foot of retail space versus $700 generated by Saks, he said.

Among the five brands with the biggest year-over-year drops in brand value were three financial players: Merrill Lynch fell 21 per cent; Morgan Stanley slumped 16 per cent; and Citi fell 14 per cent. Gap was down 20 per cent, and Ford fell 12 per cent.

Faring not so poorly was 27th-ranked HSBC, which dropped only three per cent, mostly due to strong international growth, said Bateman. The losers in all categories generally didn't keep up with consumer trends.

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