Apple The Current Fastest Growing Brand

Will Stewart writes "According to Apple News, in a recently published report, Vivaldi Partners and Forbes magazine showed Apple has increased its brand value by 38 percent in the last four years, largely on the popularity of its iPod digital media device. Vivaldi Partners estimated Apple's overall brand value for 2005 at US$5.3 billion. Google and Blackberry tie for second, while Amazon is in fourth place. The ranking was determined by taking the compound annual growth rate of each brand over a period of the last four years."

Comments

Pixar also on the list

[bsandersen]

Also of note is Pixar at number 9. So, Steve Jobs is 2 of the 10.

-- Scott

Blackberry?

[-kertrats-]

I understand maybe in business circles, Blackberries might be big. But saying that it's tied with Google, which has become an everyday verb for most even outside of the computer-nerd crowd, is ridiculous.

Re:Blackberry?

[Tony Hoyle]

Presumably it's US growth not worldwide growth.

Last place I was at they had some people come over from across the pond and they insisted the must use blackberies (we'd been mostly using the SPV with a couple of Treos at that point). We'd never heard of them up to that point.. after working out how much it would cost to implement a dedicated server, integrate it with the exchange server, plus pay for the phones (they were only available on import.. this is a little while ago.. you can get them on standard mobile phone tariffs now I believe) we ditched the idea.

*Blackberry* is #2?!

[EvilStein]

"Users average a 53-minute-a-day productivity gain, says Research in Motion."

What the article fails to mention is the 8 hour/week headache that the IT staff gets to deal with. "Productivity gain" is so subjective. :P

As for Apple being #1, it's not really a surprise to me. The iPod is *everywhere* - and in recent days, so is the Mac mini. OS X has been getting glowing reviews all over the place too.

Note that it also says they have an 18% "brand owners market capitalization" - maybe someone that speaks Wall Street can explain that one in English?

Microsoft?

[Frodo Crockett]

MS is nowhere on the list.

No Napster, Creative, or iRiver on this list

[theurge14]

Only Yahoo, and this report is crediting their new music subscription service for Yahoo's success.

This is irony at its best

[guardiangod]

Who would had thought that a 25 something year old brand is the fastest growing brand in the whole world.

Re:Was

[macaulay805]

Or talk to AMD or Via instead of just one company.

What goes up, must come down...

[Harry Balls]

...and Apple's stock price will come down.
Why?
1. iPod inventories are building up
2. The switch to Intel chips will make corporate and private equipment buyers postpone purchases

Watch for a missed quarter and/or lowered guidance and/or an earnings pre-announcement.
Then, if you have Apple shares, watch out below.

Remember "Intel Inside"?

[Leomania]

What a lame-ass thing to do, I used to think. Now Intel is more than just a brand, it's a platform; business bought into it, and you'll find there are many corporations that won't even consider AMD-powered equipment. I bet that's changing now, but nevertheless it's amazing the brand recognition a chip company managed to achieve.

Apple is to me quite the enigma. The company gets far more press and adulation relative to its size than any other company I can think of (not that I'm trying that hard; I'm sure someone will come up with some excellent examples). But its hardware has just about all of the issues that Dell and other PC makers have, be it computers or consumer electronics. Yet the overall feeling about Apple seems to range from more of a warm fuzzy to outright adoration; who else has managed anything even close besides Google?

- Leo

Re:Remember "Intel Inside"?

[snuf23]

"The fact that they are able to provide these products while having only "the same level of problems as Dell" (something I dispute, but note that in any case Apple's customer support is much better) is why they're seen as the equivalent of a BMW and not an Alfa Romeo."

Hmmm, well do a google search on "apple class action lawsuits" and see how many results you get involving hardware problems. With Dell you just get sleazy business dealing lawsuits.
As for the support - your milleage may vary. As a small business customer using the mid level Dell service I get someone showing up at my office within 4 hours of the call. I get nice onsite hardware installation if I need it (as in laptops) or can just have the part dropped off if we want to do the install ourselves. I hear their consumer level support sucks however.
Now Apple wants me to bring my computer into their store for diagnosis because they don't trust our own evaluations. They don't do onsite as far as I can tell (we buy Apple Care on all our Macs). Turnaround is MUCH slower for repairs.
For a standard business computer I sure don't need a BMW, I need something fairly reliable that has good support and sells at a low cost.

Re:Business Model

[timmyf2371]

I was made redundant at the turn of last year and with my redundancy package amongst other things I decided to purchase an inexpensive MP3 player and promptly headed over to Apple's website to purchase a 1GB iPod Shuffle however the insignificant difference in price between the Shuffle and the iPod Mini coupled with the free engraving service prompted me to spend more than I had originally intended.

Since then I've spent a little (not much) at the iTMS however most of my MP3 collection comes from CDs I have bought and as I don't buy much new music it's ideal for me.

You might be curious as to why I chose an iPod over something like a Creative player or similar which would have worked with the Napster-to-Go service (I use Napster subscription to listen to music on my workstation). The reason was pure and simple that it was made by Apple and their reputation of things "just working" plus of course it's nice design made it an instant decision and one which I don't regret at all. After installing the iTunes & iPod software it works a treat and does actually "just work".

With regards to their move to Intel, the recent speculation relating to their "Numbers" trademark, and the fact that Steve Jobs is IMO an astute businessman I've got the sneaky feeling that the processor isn't just a processor switch and is part of a longer term strategy.

Re:CRACKberry

[winkydink]

You're right. I'm tired. The possessive it holds its 's' close.

The value of hype

[Urusai]

These are all overhyped niche companies. This is what the US produces nowadays, instead of steel, lumber, food, etc. What a fine foundation for future poverty we've laid.

Story way more interesting that dry Wiki article

[SuperKendall]

The Wikipedia article is factually correct, but pretty dry.

(all following information from book iCon)

The Wiki article mentions that Pixar was obtained from Jobs for $10 million. But, what it leaves out is why and how,

At that time, Lucas was going through his divorce. His wife got a huge settlement, but Lucas didn't have much real money - his money was all tied up in companies he created so he started searching for bits to sell.

The bit that is Pixar had done some cool things for him but was costing money, so he wanted to sell. Jobs really liked the people there and what they were doing - but Lucas wanted $30m for the company and Jobs was hurting for cash having sunk a lot of money into NeXT at that point.

So, Jobs talked with Lucas a little about it but backed away, waiting.

In the meantime, Ross Perot (yes that Perot) came along, negotiating an offer for GM to buy the Pixar bit (not called Pixar at that point) for almost $30M. But they day he was to sign the contract GM cut ties to Perot, ending any negotiating power he had on their behalf and thus scuttling the deal.

Now Lucas was really hurting. He needed that money really badly. It was at this stage that Jobs stepped in - and that's how he got Pixar for only $10m.

It wasn't all roses from there though, he put a LOT of money into t hat company before it bore fruit and there are probably few other negotiators that could have dealt with Disney as effectively to bring it away from the brink of extinction, so he really deserves a lot of credit for where he arrived at (though so does Lassider by the sound of things, without whome Disney would not really have had any interest whatsoever).

One funny coincidence there is that Ross Perot also was the first investor in NeXT! He took a bath on that one.