The World’s Most Valuable Brands

The Atlanta-based home improvement chain, the world’s largest, is the only pure-play retailer on this list, employing more than 300,000 workers in their massive warehouse-like stores throughout North America. Zacks Equity Research estimates that $1,000 worth of stock in the chain purchased a decade ago would be worth about $8,700 today.

The 23-year-old Los Gatos, California-based company headed by co-founder Reed Hastings competes with two other companies on this list, Apple and Amazon, in the online streaming and content production space. Netflix has recently shown interest in virtual reality and computer gaming.

The world’s largest supplier of computer chips by revenue, based in Santa Clara, California, installed a new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, in February. The Stanford-educated engineer, who returned to Intel after a decade away from the company where he got his start, recently lured away top engineer Shlomit Weiss, another Intel veteran, from Nvidia (No. 12 on this list). She will continue to work in Israel for Intel’s operations there.

The world’s largest courier company by revenue and market cap, headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, recently indicated that it’s considering a move into same-day delivery. The increasingly crowded space for same-day delivery got a boost during the Covid-19 pandemic and UPS would compete against large retailers like Target, delivery services like Instacart, and, of course, Amazon.

The Paris-based company is the only luxury fashion and accessories company on this list. In an effort to attract younger customers, LV recently recruited “the reigning queen of TikTok” Charli D’Amelio and heavy-hitting YouTube influencer Emma Chamberlain to promote new LV footwear.

The San Jose, California-based global software company recently published its full desktop app on the revamped Microsoft Store, after the Seattle software giant loosened restrictions on apps that can be offered for the upcoming Windows 11 operating system. Adobe also recently unveiled new Adobe Experience Cloud capabilities for its enterprise customers before the practice of using HTTP cookies to collect data from web users ends.

The online payments processor company out of San Jose, California, recently announced it would be bringing Zettle by PayPal, its European point-of-sale offering, to the U.S. to target small-business customers. PayPal purchased the Swedish payment company in 2018 for $2.2 billion in its largest acquisition to date, and rebranded it earlier this year to link it to the Paypal name.

The photo and video sharing service acquired by Facebook (No. 6 on this list) in 2012 announced this year it would shift away from an emphasis on image sharing and focus on full-screen video, shopping, and messaging. A federal judge recently dismissed a government antitrust lawsuit alleging that Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and VoIP service WhatsApp was an effort to prevent these companies from becoming competitors.

The Beaverton, Oregon, sneaker giant is the only apparel company on this list. Earlier this year, longtime Nike exec Ann Hebert resigned after news emerged her son was reportedly generating $200,000 a month in sales by flipping rare, limited-edition athletic footwear, including shoes made by Nike. The company has since announced efforts to weed out automated shoe-buying bots on its SNKRS app.

The Atlanta-based world’s largest nonalcoholic beverage company (and a top producer of plastic waste) has long been a stock-market stalwart beloved by investors — if not Portuguese football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who urged the public to drink water instead of the Coca-Cola at a press conference, causing the company’s stock price to fall by $4 billion, or 1.6%, shortly after.

The Armonk, New York-based global technology company recently lost its president, James Whitehurst, after the company’s board passed him over and named Arvind Krishna to the CEO position in January. Whitehurst was CEO of Red Hat when IBM acquired the open-source software giant in 2018 for $34 billion. He oversaw the merger that resulted in IBM’s cloud revenue to rise 20%, to $25 billion.

Dallas-based AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications company, partnered last year with Google to enable the tech company’s cloud platform to support AT&T’s 5G mobile network. In June, AT&T signed a deal that would shift management of the company’s mobile network traffic to Microsoft Azure. In return Microsoft is acquiring AT&T’s network cloud platform technology.

This year, the New York City-based telecommunications company introduced its Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) vehicle. Built by Verizon on a modified Ford F-650 truck, the vehicle provides first-responders a mobile 5G and satellite-connectivity center that can be rapidly deployed to disaster areas. Verizon and AT&T are in a race to deploy next-generation 5G wireless technology across the U.S.

The Santa Clara, California, global tech company is a leading producer of graphics processing units (GPUs), a key computing component. The company is also a heavy hitter in deep-learning-based autonomous car and driver assist technologies. This year, Nvidia launched Cambridge-1, the UK’s fastest supercomputer.

The only alcoholic beverage producer on this list is also relatively unknown outside of China — but it doesn’t need to be. China’s “national liquor” has a potential home market of 1.4 billion people who are old enough to drink. A rare 24-bottle crate of the fermented sorghum-based liquor from 1974 sold for nearly $1.4 million in June at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong.

The global financial services company based in Purchase, New York, recently announced that it’s upgrading its global payment network to its Next Edge, a blend of cloud and edge computing — a complex system that replaces card-based transactions with modern digital-payment services.

Like Coca-Cola, the world’s largest fast-food company and franchise network is a dividends-paying stalwart with a globally recognized brand. The Chicago-based company has been in recent years plowing forward with in-store touchscreen menu kiosks and mobile app ordering systems. This year, the company began rolling out its first loyalty program.

The Foster City, California, global financial services company recently announced plans to acquire Tink, a popular open banking startup in Europe that allows users of its intermediary software (API) to link to numerous bank apps and services for functions like accessing statements and initiating payments. Visa is paying €1.8 billion for Tink, which is integrated with about 3,400 European banks and financial institutions

The Chinese e-commerce company is a globally recognized business-to-consumer, business-to-business, and consumer-to-consumer platform. But like Tencent (No. 5 on this list), the company is facing anti-monopoly scrutiny from the Chinese government. Regulators fined both companies recently for what they consider to be anti-competitive practices as they expand into financial services and health care.

The Menlo Park, California-based global social media giant recently unleashed Bulletin, a newsletter platform aimed directly at Substack. The difference? Facebook is choosing to (initially, at least) offer the service for free while Substack takes 10% of writer’s revenue. Critics argue the strategy of losing money to trample competitors should be illegal.

The Chinese social media and entertainment conglomerate owns WeChat and is the world’s largest computer gaming company based on revenue through its stakes that include American “League of Legends” developer Riot Games and Japanese gaming company Marvelous. Like Alibaba (No. 7 on this list), Tencent is facing antitrust scrutiny in China.

The Seattle-based global tech company, which is unleashing its Windows 11 operating system this year, recently lost a lucrative U.S. Department of Defense cloud computing contract after Amazon (No. 1 on this list) challenged the deal made while Donald Trump was president. In a more positive development for the company, telecom giant AT&T (No. 14 on this list) signed a deal to use Microsoft’s cloud business, Azure, to handle the company’s mobile network traffic.

The global search giant based in Mountain View, California, is facing a lawsuit from 36 state attorneys general (and the District of Columbia AG) for allegedly abusing its market power to force Google app developers to pay a 30% commission on sales made through Google Play. Google is also facing three federal antitrust lawsuits.

The Cupertino, California-based consumer electronics, software and online services provider is among the most globally recognized and coveted brands. Like Google, Apple is facing legal challenges for allegedly abusing its market dominance to force developers to use its own store to sell apps that work on its mobile operating systems.

The Seattle-based tech giant that has made founder Jeff Bezos the first person in the world to top $200 billion in net worth recently announced it wants to buy film and TV company MGM for $8.45 billion. According to The Information, the Federal Trade Commission is currently scrutinizing the deal. Amazon scored a legal victory recently by successfully challenging a U.S. Department of Defense cloud computing contract granted to Microsoft (No. 4 on this list) during the Trump Administration.