Apple has toppled Google in 2010 to become the world’s most powerful brand, according to the WPP-owned research company Millward Brown. It  puts Apple at number one in its annual top 100 global brand power list, Brandz, up from third place in 2009, with an 84 per cent increase in its estimated value to $153bn. Apple ended Google’s four year run at the top of the global brand power list, in a year when social media darling Facebook also broke into the top 100.

“It is really the iPad that has driven [Apple’s growing brand value], although the iPhone has continued to do magnificently too, and the development of apps,” said Peter Walshe, global director of the Brandz report.

Walshe added that on measures examined within the report such as “desirability”, Apple scores in the top 10 in the world and on a “buzz” scale – taking in mentions on blogs, message boards and tweets – it comes fourth behind Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

The most valuable brand in the UK was once again telecoms company Vodafone, which ranks 12th.

Categories: Articles, Markets, Research