APPLE TOPPLES GOOGLE AS WORLD'S MOST VALUABLE BRAND

                          

Technology giant Apple emerged as world's most valuable brand surpassing search engine major Google.

The iphone marker's brand is valued at $153.3 billion, an 84% increase since last year.Mean while google's brand is now valued at $111.5 billion, a 2% fall from 2010.

ICICI brand is the lone Indian company to feature in the list of top 100 global brands. With a brand value of $14.9 billion, India;s largest private sector lender ICICI bank is ranked at 53rd position  in the league of world's 100 most valuable brands compiled by global brand agency Millward Brown. This is the second straight appearance for ICICI bank in annual brandZ study.

Interestingly the report said that with a rise of 27% in brand value to $8.2 billion, India's Infosys was one of the most valuable technology brands in the world and is expected to soon rank among the top 100 most valuable global brands across all sectors.

IBM has bagged the third position with a brand value of $100.84 billion followed by Mcdonalds ($81.01 billion)    and Microsoft ($78.24 billion).

The BrandZ index calculates brand value on several factors, such as an estimate of Brand's contribution to earnings, valuation of intangible assets, measure of customer perception and an estimate of growth potential.

The Brand rankings are dominated by technology companies, with six out of top 10 places cornered by Apple, Google, IBM ,Microsoft, AT & T, China mobile.

Other brands in the list include- Coca cola (6th), Vodafone (12th), Toyota(27th), HSBC (28th), Colgate (55th), Pepsi (63rd), Intel (58th) and Samsung (67th).