Edible Apple

By Luis Estrada:

Face it, guys. Apple is the envy of the entire computer industry. Not only are they making money hand over fist but they’re doing it while releasing revolutionary products that continually raise the bar for the entire tech industry. More than that, Apple products have a cachet of “cool” that most companies literally spend millions of dollars trying to emulate.

Case in point, a new survey from BrandZ lists Apple as the world’s most valuable brand with an estimated worth of $153 billion, besting blue chip companies from Coca-Cola to Disney, and of course, Google who occupied the top spot in last year’s survey.

From 2009 to 2010, BrandZ’s rankings (PDF) show that Apple’s brand value increased a whopping 84%. Google’s brand value, meanwhile, droppeddown 2% to $111 billion. Overall, the top 100 most valuable brands saw their brand value cumulatively increase by 17% to $2.4 trillion, further highlighting the impressive gains Apple enjoyed year over year.

Rounding out the top 10 were IBM, McDonalds, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Marlboro, GE, and Verizon. Some solid companies, though it is surprising to see Marlboro make the list.

Though not in the top 10, other strong performers over the last year include Amazon which saw its brand value increase 246% to $19.1 billion, the Chinese search engine Baidu, and Facebook which made the top 100 list for the first time at 35.

BrandZ was developed by Milward Brown Optimor and works by analyzing the world’s leading brands and the “economic and competitive dynamics that influence value fluctuations.” The survey places an emphasis on brands that generate profits through the direct sale of goods and services to consumers. The survey touts itself as being the only ranking “grounded in both quantitative consumer research and in-depth financial analysis.” Also of note, Optimor writes that the BrandZ database contains information gleaned from over 2 million in-depth interviews conducted in over 30 countries worldwide.