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The World’s Tech Giants, Ranked by Brand Value

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World's most valuable tech brands 2020

The World’s Tech Giants, Ranked by Brand Value

The pandemic has businesses everywhere on the ropes, with many firms filing for bankruptcy since lockdowns began. Despite the uncertainty, tech giants and major digital retail brands are still thriving—and some are running circles around those that are less pandemic-proof.

Using data from Kantar and Bloomberg, a recent brand report released by BrandZ shows which tech companies are proving their worth to consumers during COVID-19 chaos. With data covering almost 4 million consumers, BrandZ also reveals that the tech sector leads the world’s 100 most valued brands in terms of financial power and consumer sentiment.

Here’s how the top 20 tech brands from the report stack up:

RankCompanyBrand Value (2020)Change (%)
#1🇺🇸 Apple$352 billion+14%
#2🇺🇸 Microsoft$327 billion+30%
#3🇺🇸 Google$324 billion+5%
#4🇨🇳 Tencent$151 billion+15%
#5🇺🇸 Facebook$147 billion-7%
#6🇺🇸 IBM$84 billion-3%
#7🇩🇪 SAP$58 billion0%
#8🇺🇸 Instagram$42 billion+47%
#9🇺🇸 Accenture$41 billion+6%
#10🇺🇸 Intel$37 billion+17%
#11🇺🇸 Adobe$36 billion+29%
#12🇰🇷 Samsung$33 billion+7%
#13🇺🇸 Salesforce$30 billion+13%
#14🇺🇸 LinkedIn$30 billion+31%
#15🇨🇳 Huawei$29 billion+9%
#16🇺🇸 Oracle$27 billion+2%
#17🇺🇸 Cisco$26 billion-9%
#18🇺🇸 Dell$18 billion-2%
#19🇨🇳 Xiaomi$17 billion-16%
#20🇨🇳 Baidu$15 billion-29%

Out of the top five tech brands, Microsoft made the biggest moves with 30% brand value growth. Other big movers in the top 20 were Instagram (owned by Facebook), Adobe, and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft), rising 47%, 29%, and 31%, respectively.

Broken down by nation, U.S. brands are dominating tech’s heavy hitters, claiming 14 of the world’s top 20 tech brands. Chinese brands round out much of the remaining top 20, including tech entertainment and social media giant Tencent, which rose 15% in brand value since 2019.

Big Tech’s Heavyweights

Tech’s top brands are raking in billions of dollars, capturing consumer mindshare, captivating people, and comforting them during volatile months. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tencent, and Facebook—tech’s leading contingent—have made those moves look easy during what are rough times for many world brands. 

While most tech brands in the upper half of the top 20 saw significant increases in brand value, only Facebook and IBM were in decline from 2019, at -7% and -3% respectively. The biggest loss in tech’s top 20 came from China’s Baidu, which fell by -29% in 2020.

Waning consumer trust, thanks in part to the perceived misuse of personal data, is a gap that tech’s popularity alone won’t fill forever. (Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, nearly 25% of Facebook account holders reported being “extremely” or “very” concerned about their personal data.)

Pandemic-Proof Applications

Coming in at eighth place, Facebook-owned Instagram gained 47% in brand value—a huge percentage, but less than the whopping 95% growth it had in 2019.

On the whole, digital apps have been faring well during the pandemic, especially those built for entertainment, shopping, social connection, and delivery.

These brands had anticipated, even invented, the online-offline dynamics of modern life that became indispensable for survival during the lockdown homebound weeks of avoiding the contagion. 

— BrandZ 2020 Global Top 100 Report

Top Brands, by Category

While the brand value growth rates of tech giants aren’t entirely immune to the effects of COVID-19, the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Google are growing steadily, surpassed only by e-commerce leader Amazon. 

With data collected into April 2020, BrandZ’s report on the world’s top 100 brands reflects multiple shifting needs and consumer concerns at a categorical scale. 

While consumer affinity for e-commerce and social media brands has increased, fast food and beer brands took a hit, despite reports of increased alcohol consumption and food delivery during lockdown. It would seem then, that consumers have been valuing their tools and means of consumption.

Of the report’s 14 brand categories, only six increased in value, mostly by less than 5%. Of the top risers, six were tech brands and six were mainly e-commerce. 

Other upwardly mobile brands were those in the apparel and personal care categories. Much like retail, those categories had an increasing reliance on technology to deliver their products. 

The above chart shows overall categorical changes for 2020 led by retail, tech, and insurance. In the opposite corner, energy, and bank brands took the biggest hits.

Rolling with the Punches

The economic impacts of COVID-19 are undeniable. Even still, BrandZ’s top 100 brands marked a steady increase of 6% in value in 2020, compared to 7% the previous year.

This pandemic has offered up era-defining change, with tech and e-commerce seizing the day. But in a climate where nothing can be taken for granted, brands large and small are still taking their knocks.

For now, the brands that are embraced by consumers will be those that can apply a salve to the blows that 2020 keeps delivering. 

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

We visualized the results of an analysis by the World Economic Forum, which uncovered the jobs most impacted by AI.

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Charted: The Jobs Most Impacted by AI

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.

Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools haven’t been around for very long, but they’re expected to have far-reaching impacts on the way people do their jobs. With this in mind, researchers have already begun studying the potential impacts of this transformative technology.

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the results of a World Economic Forum report, which estimated how different job departments will be exposed to AI disruption.

Data and Methodology

To identify the job departments most impacted by AI, researchers assessed over 19,000 occupational tasks (e.g. reading documents) to determine if they relied on language. If a task was deemed language-based, it was then determined how much human involvement was needed to complete that task.

With this analysis, researchers were then able to estimate how AI would impact different occupational groups.

DepartmentLarge impact (%)Small impact (%)No impact (%)
IT73261
Finance70219
Customer Sales671617
Operations651817
HR57412
Marketing56413
Legal46504
Supply Chain431839

In our graphic, large impact refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies. Small impact refers to tasks that have a lesser potential for disruption.

Where AI will make the biggest impact

Jobs in information technology (IT) and finance have the highest share of tasks expected to be largely impacted by AI.

Within IT, tasks that are expected to be automated include software quality assurance and customer support. On the finance side, researchers believe that AI could be significantly useful for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing.

Still interested in AI? Check out this graphic which ranked the most commonly used AI tools in 2023.

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