Amazon.com joined the ranks of the world’s top10 brands, jumping four spots with a brand value of $64.2 billion, according to the Millward Brown BrandZ study.
Amazon, which is holding its annual shareholders meeting today in Seattle, ranked higher than its brick-and-mortar retail rival Walmart (#22) and e-commerce competitor eBay (#61). Amazon is the first retailer to crack the top 10, though the company certainly is more diverse in terms of its makeup since it is also a leading device maker and cloud computing giant.
Interestingly, a separate brand study released earlier this year by Interbrand put Walmart on top of the retail category with a brand value of $131.9 billion. That compared to Amazon’s brand value of $23.6 billion, behind Target and Home Depot.
Six of the top 10 brands in the Millward Brown study are technology companies, with Google now leading the way. And there are some newcomers too, such as Twitter (#71) and LinkedIn (#78).
Microsoft bolstered its brand in 2014, jumping three spots and seeing its brand value rise 29 percent. (Call it the Satya effect). Its brand value stood at $90 billion.
Meanwhile, Starbucks jumped 13 spots to #31 on the list with a brand value of $25 billion.
