Advertising
The World’s 100 Most Valuable Brands in 2018
The World’s 100 Most Valuable Brands in 2018
According to Forbes, the world’s 100 most valuable brands are worth a staggering $2.15 trillion.
While that singular number is impressive, the publication’s 2018 rankings of global brands can be further broken down in other ways that are also quite intriguing. Let’s take a look at brands by individual brand value, as well as sorted by relevant industry.
Ranking the Most Valuable Brands in 2018
Today’s infographic comes to us from HowMuch.net and it showcases the 100 most valuable brands in the world, according to recent Forbes rankings.
Here are the brands with the most assessed value, along with their one-year change and industry.
| Rank | Brand | Brand Value ($B) | 1-Year Change | Industry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Apple | $182.8 | +8% | Technology |
| #2 | $132.1 | +30% | Technology | |
| #3 | Microsoft | $104.9 | +21% | Technology |
| #4 | $94.8 | +29% | Technology | |
| #5 | Amazon | $70.9 | +31% | Technology |
| #6 | Coca-Cola | $57.3 | +2% | Beverages |
| #7 | Samsung | $47.6 | +25% | Technology |
| #8 | Disney | $47.5 | +8% | Leisure |
| #9 | Toyota | $44.7 | +9% | Automotive |
| #10 | AT&T | $41.9 | +14% | Telecom |
Apple remains the world’s most valuable brand at $182.8 billion, but there are four other tech companies hot on the iPhone maker’s heels – and each of them is growing brand value at a rapid pace.
Google (+30%), Microsoft (+21%), Facebook (+29%), and Amazon (31%) are all gaining at double-digit clips. At this point, each has lapped Coca-Cola, the highest ranked non-tech brand in the Top 10 at $57.3 billion.
Brands by Industry
The aforementioned top five brands are all focused on technology, but it’s important to recognize that this is also a part of a much wider trend.
Over the last decade, tech brands have gained consumer prominence to make the industry dominant both in terms of quantity of brands (20%) and total brand value (41%) on the Forbes 100 Most Valuable Brand list.
| Industry | # of Brands | Total Brand Value ($B) |
|---|---|---|
| Technology | 20 | $872.6 |
| Financial Services | 13 | $160.2 |
| Automotive | 12 | $222.9 |
| Consumer Goods | 11 | $124.7 |
| Retail | 9 | $119.0 |
| Luxury | 6 | $91.7 |
| Beverages | 4 | $103.2 |
| Diversified | 4 | $66.3 |
| Telecom | 3 | $82.3 |
| Restaurants | 3 | $65.0 |
| Apparel | 3 | $49.0 |
| Alcohol | 3 | $42.5 |
| Leisure | 2 | $56.1 |
| Media | 2 | $26.3 |
| Transportation | 2 | $21.6 |
| Tobacco | 1 | $26.6 |
| Business Services | 1 | $14.8 |
| Aerospace | 1 | $8.1 |
| Total | 100 | $2,152.9 |
Only a handful of brands in consumer-facing industries like media, apparel, alcohol, and restaurants make the rankings.
Meanwhile, sectors that traditionally rely on heavy amounts of advertising – like consumer packaged goods and retail – have just 20 brands on the list between them. The highest ranked brand in either of those categories is Walmart at #26th with a brand value of $24.9 billion, which is about 1/3 of the brand value of online competitor Amazon.
Revenue
Charting Revenue: How The New York Times Makes Money
This graphic tracks the New York Times’ revenue streams over the past two decades, identifying its transition from advertising to subscription-reliant.
Creator Program
When it comes to quality and accessible content, whether it be entertainment or news, consumers are often willing to pay for it.
Similar to the the precedent set by the music industry, many news outlets have also been figuring out how to transition into a paid digital monetization model. Over the past decade or so, The New York Times (NY Times)—one of the world’s most iconic and widely read news organizations—has been transforming its revenue model to fit this trend.
This chart from creator Trendline uses annual reports from the The New York Times Company to visualize how this seemingly simple transition helped the organization adapt to the digital era.
The New York Times’ Revenue Transition
The NY Times has always been one of the world’s most-widely circulated papers. Before the launch of its digital subscription model, it earned half its revenue from print and online advertisements.
The rest of its income came in through circulation and other avenues including licensing, referrals, commercial printing, events, and so on. But after annual revenues dropped by more than $500 million from 2006 to 2010, something had to change.
| NY Revenue By Year | Print Circulation | Digital Subscription | Advertising | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | $623M | $1,196M | $168M | $1,987M | |
| 2004 | $616M | $1,222M | $165M | $2,003M | |
| 2005 | $616M | $1,262M | $157M | $2,035M | |
| 2006 | $637M | $1,269M | $172M | $2,078M | |
| 2007 | $646M | $1,223M | $183M | $2,052M | |
| 2008 | $668M | $1,068M | $181M | $1,917M | |
| 2009 | $683M | $797M | $101M | $1,581M | |
| 2010 | $684M | $780M | $93M | $1,557M | |
| 2011 | $659M | $47M | $756M | $93M | $1,555M |
| 2012 | $681M | $114M | $712M | $88M | $1,595M |
| 2013 | $673M | $151M | $667M | $86M | $1,577M |
| 2014 | $668M | $172M | $662M | $86M | $1,588M |
| 2015 | $653M | $199M | $639M | $89M | $1,580M |
| 2016 | $647M | $232M | $581M | $94M | $1,554M |
| 2017 | $668M | $340M | $559M | $109M | $1,676M |
| 2018 | $642M | $400M | $558M | $148M | $1,748M |
| 2019 | $624M | $460M | $531M | $198M | $1,813M |
| 2020 | $597M | $598M | $392M | $196M | $1,783M |
| 2021 | $588M | $774M | $498M | $215M | $2,075M |
| 2022 | $574M | $979M | $523M | $233M | $2,308M |
In 2011, the NY Times launched its new digital subscription model and put some of its online articles behind a paywall. It bet that consumers would be willing to pay for quality content.
And while it faced a rocky start, with revenue through print circulation and advertising slowly dwindling and some consumers frustrated that once-available content was now paywalled, its income through digital subscriptions began to climb.
After digital subscription revenues first launched in 2011, they totaled to $47 million of revenue in their first year. By 2022 they had climbed to $979 million and accounted for 42% of total revenue.
Why Are Readers Paying for News?
More than half of U.S. adults subscribe to the news in some format. That (perhaps surprisingly) includes around four out of 10 adults under the age of 35.
One of the main reasons cited for this was the consistency of publications in covering a variety of news topics.
And given the NY Times’ popularity, it’s no surprise that it recently ranked as the most popular news subscription.
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