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Animation: The Top 15 Global Brands (2000-2018)

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Animation: The Top 15 Global Brands (2000-2018)

Time travel back to the early-2000s, and a list of the world’s most respected brands might be surprising.

Tobacco company Marlboro is still one of the top 15 global brands with a value of $22 billion, while companies like Nokia and AT&T also help to round out the group.

Aside from Microsoft, the tech companies at the time were mostly focused on hardware and services. HP was considered a top global brand at the time, and even IBM was still making PCs until the year 2005.

The Platform Revolution

How times have changed.

In today’s animation from TheRankings, you can see how the list of the top 15 global brands has evolved over the last two decades or so.

The visible shift: as soon as Google hits the rankings in 2008 (2:21 in video), it becomes clear that the money is on the software side – particularly in coding software that ends up as a dominant consumer platform.

Shortly after, companies like Apple, Facebook, and Amazon enter the fold, quickly climbing to the top. Here are the final numbers for 2018 in terms of brand value, with data coming from Interbrand:

Top 15 Global Brands in 2018

The Problem with Hardware

What’s the difference between the big hardware firms of old, and the successful ones that dot the list today?

From a business perspective, hardware companies need to have a bold and accurate vision of the future, constantly taking innovative strides to beat competitors to that vision. If they can only make incremental improvements, the reality is that their competitors can enter the fold to create cheaper, similar hardware.

Samsung, which finished 2018 as the world’s sixth most valued brand, is a good example of this in practice. The company has had the top-selling smartphone for every year between 2012-2018 – an impressive feat in staying on top of consumer trends and technology.

Despite Samsung’s success, it remains stuck behind four other tech brands on the list – all companies almost exclusively focused on platforms: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Why are Platforms so Dominant?

Constant innovation is a good barrier to entry if you can keep doing it – but the platforms have an even more bulletproof strategy: being everywhere at once.

Facebook uses the powerful network effect from billions of people as a moat, and then it buys up-and-comers (Instagram, WhatsApp) to cover even more ground. As a result, competing with Facebook is a nightmare – even if you could theoretically acquire new users at $1 per user at a ridiculous scale, it would require a marketing investment of billions of dollars to make inroads on the company’s audience.

Microsoft owns various platforms (Windows, Xbox, LinkedIn, Azure, etc.) that help insulate from competition, while Google’s strategy is to be everywhere you need to search, even if it’s in your living room.

Because platforms have massive scale and are ubiquitous with consumers, it gives them the ultimate pricing power. In turn, at least so far, they have been able to establish the world’s most powerful consumer brands.

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Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

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Map illustrating median download speeds in each global region.

Mapped: Internet Download Speeds by Region

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In today’s fast-paced world, internet speed isn’t just a convenience—it’s the driving force behind how we work, play, and connect.

In this map, we illustrate median download speeds in each global region, based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

North America and East Asia Have the Speediest Internet

According to the World Bank, download speeds in high-income countries increased significantly between 2019 and 2023, while speeds in lower-income countries stagnated.

As of 2022, North America and East Asia have the speediest internet.

RegionMedian mobile download speed (Mb/sec)Median fixed broadband download speed (Mb/sec)
East Asia & Pacific90171
Europe & Central Asia4485
Latin America & the Caribbean2674
Middle East & North Africa3636
North America83193
South Asia2743
Sub-Saharan Africa1615

This difference in broadband speeds can mainly be attributed to investment.

In 2020, nearly 90% of global telecommunication investment came from East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and North America. These regions not only concentrate the highest-income population but also the top technology hubs.

Meanwhile, low- and middle-income regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for less than 10% of total investment.

Most of the investment is directed towards fiber optic and 5G mobile networks. According to the mobile industry association GSMA, mobile operators alone are projected to invest more than $600 billion between 2022 and 2025, with 85% of the total allocated for 5G.

In 2023, broadband speeds in high-income countries were 10x faster for fixed connections, and 5x faster for mobile connections compared to those in low-income countries.

Fixed broadband connections, which provide high-speed internet to residences or businesses, reached 38% of the population in high-income countries. In comparison, fixed broadband penetration was only 4% of the population in lower-middle-income countries and almost zero in low-income countries.

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