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.

Microsoft?

[Frodo Crockett]

MS is nowhere on the list.

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.

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.

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.