Amazon overtakes Google as the world's most valuable brand

Rapid expansion in bricks and mortar helps company take top spot as China's tech giants climb up rankings

Jeff Bezos has expanded his business by opening physical stores (Reuters)

Amazon has overtaken Google as the world’s most valuable brand, beating a host of rivals in a tech-dominated list.

The e-retailer’s brand value exceeds $150bn (£105bn) and saw a 42 per cent year-on-year jump on the back of its $13.7bn takeover of Whole Foods in August last year, according to a study by market research firm Brand Finance.

Amazon, the world’s largest online business since 2015, is rapidly establishing a foothold in bricks and mortar after opening its first Amazon Go supermarket earlier in January.

“The strength and value of the Amazon brand gives it stakeholder permission to extend relentlessly into new sectors and geographies,” said Brand Finance chief executive David Haigh. “All evidence suggests that the amazing Amazon brand is going to continue growing indefinitely and exponentially.”

Fellow Silicon Valley giant Apple was ranked in second place behind Amazon, with a brand value of $146bn. However, the report warned that Apple’s “future looks bleak” as it becomes increasingly dependent on iPhone sales. Apple sold 29 million iPhone X handsets in its fourth quarter, just short of expectations.

Last year’s most valuable brand, Google, fell from first place to third due to the search engine firm’s narrow focus on “specific sectors”. Its brand value only increased by 10 per cent to $120bn.

According to Brand Finance, Google’s investments in self-driving cars “still lack the scale and audacity demonstrated by Amazon’s new ventures”.

Technology firms dominated the rankings. Samsung, Facebook and Microsoft all made the top 10, along with US retailer Walmart.

Chinese brands made gains into the top twenty most valuable brands and predicted to overtake US tech brands in the near future.

Alibaba, owned by self-made billionaire and founder Jack Ma, saw its brand value grow by 58 per cent to $56bn, putting it in 12^th place.

Momentum is behind China’s tech firms, with Alibaba’s, Tencent’s, WeChat’s, Baidu’s, JD’s and NetEase’s value growing by an average 67 per cent year on year.

China’s tech industry is boosted by President Xi JinPing’s Made in 2025 initiative, a national plan to shift China away from being a global manufacturing power towards technological innovation and services.