A brand is what represents a company, mirroring its assets to the masses. When strong brand equals to valuable assets, many companies are trying their bests in spending their time, money, and other resources to create a strong foundation. Strong brands will allow companies to monopoly their products, charge premium prices, and add value to the market. And in 2014, no other companies do better in those things than Apple.
When it comes to premium price and innovation, Apple does better than others. Moving in both software and hardware products, Apple has released devices that functions similar to others in the competition, but with added credibility. And with that big name printed behind its products, consumers are willing to pay whatever the company asks for.
During the last quarter of 2014, Apple has sold more than 39 million iPhones, more than 12 million iPads, and more than 5 million Macs. The outstanding performance is adding to Apple, making it a $124.2 billion brand. Apple's brand is up 19 percent since 2013, and its products have redefined four industry since the year 2000, according to a study of the world's most valuable brand by Forbes.
The company's products that changed how people see technologies mostly came from the iPhones, iPads, and iPods line ups. Apple is seeking to enter the wearables industry, as well as financial payment when it announced its very own smartwatches and Apple Pay. These technologies boosted the company's profit to 33 percent, giving more than $50 billion revenue in 2014.
Replacing the late Steve Jobs as the company's top executive, Tim Cook has successfully made Apple as one of the companies that earned a value of more than $100 billion in two straight years.
Microsoft with the brand valued at $63 billion, is up 11 percent from 2013. The company has made numerous transitions from software and desktop, to the growing mobile world. With Microsoft Windows as its early success, the company has grown from software to cloud services and also wearables.
Microsoft began its major venture in the mobile industry when it partnered with Nokia and acquired its mobile division. The company also made its own tablets, the Surface line up, to compete with the reigning Apple's iPad. However, the product is behind the shadows of Apple's, and this has made Surface failed to get that "powerful influence" in the market like the iPad.
Behind the leadership of its CEO Satya Nadella, the company still continues its operating system domination and enjoyed some success with the launch of Windows 8.
Google is growing even faster. With 19 percent increase in performance, the company's brand is valued at $56.6 billion. Google is well-known for its search engine, and ads throughout its services has given the company most of its profits throughout its lifetime. With $16 billion in revenue since 2013, the company is also the biggest spender in term of technology advancements.
With the "don't be evil" motto, Google is spreading its wings in so many places. To some, Google is seen as a company that targets domination by acquiring whatever companies it can put its hands on, and releases products in a pace that no other companies can match. But with billions of dollars at its disposal, the co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are steadily using the company's resources with the help of many talented people to create "moonshot" innovations that help improve lives.
IBM with the market capital of $202 billion as of May 2014 came on the list with a brand name worth $47.9 billion. Founded in 1911, IBM is regarded as the one of the oldest technology company that came up in the top global brand. Despite struggling to be a $100 billion-in-sales company, the IT and technology company which provides integrated solutions that leverage information technology and knowledge of business processes, continued its business services brand throughout the year. The company that holds the most U.S. patents for decades, is making a big push into big-data and cloud service, transforming itself from a hardware company it is long known for.
One of the company that has powerful domination in the technology world is Samsung. The South Korean multinational conglomerate company is the biggest smartphone maker by the help of the dominating Android operating system's in the mobile OS war. By making mobile products faster than any other manufacturers, Samsung has gained a reputation of creating mobile devices that ranges from the lowest-end in the market, to the highest with the sorts of Galaxy line up that compete straight with Apple's premium made iPhones.
Furthermore, the company is seeking to be independent from Android by attempting to create its own Tizen OS and its own smartwatch.
As one of the world’s top marketing spenders, Samsung continues to improve its brand value, going up quickly in 2014 with a value estimated at $35 billion.
The technology industry is relentlessly expanding. Despite people are undeniably willing to see better and newer innovation products coming from the brilliant minds in their fields. Social media networks are one of the fastest gainers in the industry. The social giant Facebook is the biggest gainer in 2014. Coming on the list, sandwiched inside the top 100 brands, the company's brand is up 74 percent, and valued at $23.7 billion. Since social media networks is growing up incredibly fast, and people are moving away from Facebook because of various reasons, the company still made good performance with its marketing and product strategy. Facebook performed better in term of mobile ads if compared to Google because of better targeting throughout platforms, this has made its revenue jumped up 59 percent. Other popular social media, Twitter, is also gaining fast.