Technology

The World’s 100 Most Valuable Brands in 2018

Published

5 years ago

June 25, 2018

Jeff Desjardins

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	Google	$132.1	+30%	Technology
#3	Microsoft	$104.9	+21%	Technology
#4	Facebook	$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.

Related Topics:forbes tech brands advertising brand value

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AI

Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Nearly 800,000 AI jobs were posted in the U.S. throughout 2022. View this graphic to see a breakdown by state.

Published

3 days ago

May 26, 2023

Marcus Lu

Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Much ink has been spilled over fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate jobs in the economy. While some of those fears may be well-founded, red-hot interest in AI innovation is creating new jobs as well.

This graphic visualizes data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, which shows how many AI-related jobs were posted in each state throughout 2022.

In total there were 795,624 AI jobs posted throughout the year, of which 469,925 (59%) were in the top 10. The full tally is included in the table below.

Rank	State	Number of job postings	% of total
1	California	142,154	17.9%
2	Texas	66,624	8.4%
3	New York	43,899	5.5%
4	Massachusetts	34,603	4.3%
5	Virginia	34,221	4.3%
6	Florida	33,585	4.2%
7	Illinois	31,569	4.0%
8	Washington	31,284	3.9%
9	Georgia	26,620	3.3%
10	Michigan	25,366	3.2%
11	North Carolina	23,854	3.0%
12	New Jersey	23,447	2.9%
13	Colorado	20,421	2.6%
14	Pennsylvania	20,397	2.6%
15	Arizona	19,514	2.5%
16	Ohio	19,208	2.4%
17	Maryland	16,769	2.1%
18	Minnesota	11,808	1.5%
19	Tennessee	11,173	1.4%
20	Missouri	10,990	1.4%
21	Oregon	10,811	1.4%
22	Washington, D.C.	9,606	1.2%
23	Indiana	9,247	1.2%
24	Connecticut	8,960	1.1%
25	Wisconsin	8,879	1.1%
26	Alabama	7,866	1.0%
27	Kansas	7,683	1.0%
28	Arkansas	7,247	0.9%
29	Utah	6,885	0.9%
30	Nevada	6,813	0.9%
31	Idaho	6,109	0.8%
32	Oklahoma	5,719	0.7%
33	Iowa	5,670	0.7%
34	South Carolina	4,928	0.6%
35	Louisiana	4,806	0.6%
36	Kentucky	4,536	0.6%
37	Nebraska	4,032	0.5%
38	Delaware	3,503	0.4%
39	New Mexico	3,357	0.4%
40	Rhode Island	2,965	0.4%
41	New Hampshire	2,719	0.3%
42	Hawaii	2,550	0.3%
43	Mississippi	2,548	0.3%
44	Maine	2,227	0.3%
45	South Dakota	2,195	0.3%
46	Vermont	1,571	0.2%
47	North Dakota	1,227	0.2%
48	Alaska	970	0.1%
49	West Virginia	887	0.1%
50	Montana	833	0.1%
51	Wyoming	769	0.1%

The following chart adds some context to these numbers. It shows how the percentage of AI job postings in some of the top states has changed since 2010.

We can see that California quickly became the primary destination for AI jobs in the early 2010s, presumably as Silicon Valley companies began developing the technology.

California’s share has since declined, with a significant number of jobs seemingly moving to Texas. In fact, many tech companies are relocating to Texas to avoid California’s relatively higher taxes and cost of living.

The 10 Most In-Demand Specialized Skills

Lightcast also captured the top 10 specialized skills that were required for AI-related jobs. These are listed in the table below.

Skill	Frequency (number of postings)	Frequency (% of postings)
Python	296,662	37%
Computer Science	260,333	33%
SQL	185,807	23%
Data Analysis	159,801	20%
Data Science	157,855	20%
Amazon Web Services	155,615	19%
Agile Methodology	152,965	19%
Automation	138,791	17%
Java	133,856	17%
Software Engineering	133,286	17%