Brand Finance: Amazon the top U.S. brand in 2023, Walmart is No. 5

Brand Finance has pegged Amazon as the top U.S. brand by value. Amazon took the top spot from Apple with a calculated brand value of $299.3 billion in this year’s report. The online retail/tech giant hit No. 1 despite a 15% decline from the year-ago assessment.

The subjective brand value is understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market, according to Brand Finance. The company calculates brand value using the “royalty relief” methodology which determines the value a company would be willing to pay to license its brand as if it did not own it. This approach involves estimating the future revenue attributable to a brand and calculating a royalty rate that would be charged for the use of the brand.

“Our research has found that Amazon’s brand value comes from its strong position in both B2C and B2B sectors of the economy, as it is a key global market leader in the massive markets of both online retail and online cloud computing services. David Haigh, chairman & CEO, Brand Finance. “It is continuing to expand into new verticals such as bricks and mortar retailing, acquisition of film studios, and payment processing.”

Apple came in second this year with a brand value of $297.5 billion, down 16% from a year ago. Google held the No. 3 post with a value of $281.4 billion, up 7% from a year ago. But it also pulled off the No. 1 spot for brand strength this year, with its sister company YouTube coming in second. Microsoft came in fourth again this year with a value of $191.6 billion, up 4% year over year.

Walmart held the No. 5 position in 2023 with a value of $113.8 billion, up 2% annually. The Bentonville-based retailer also ranked 6th on the Brand Finance sustainability perception value list.  Amazon scored the top sustainability spot, followed by Tesla and Apple and Google.

The report said the tech sector remains the most valued again in 2023 with 58 brands in the cohort valued at a combined $901.7 billion. The retail sector is the second most valued with 41 companies in the report, whose cumulative value was $803.5 billion.