Amazon leads retailers as most valuable in brand value, even though others–such as Home Depot, Lowe’s and Alibaba-grew at a faster rate, according to the Retail 50 list from Brand Finance.
According to the latest 2018 report, Amazon’s brand value of $187.91 billion is more than double its nearest competitor, Walmart at $67.87 billion. Rounding out the top 10 are Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ikea, CVS Caremark, Costco, Target, Walgreens and Alibaba Group.
Brand Finance calculated the values of brands using its proprietary Royalty Relief approach. It takes into account measures such as brand strength, brand royalty rate, brand revenues and brand value.
What’s interesting is that while Amazon grew 24.6 percent compared with its 2017 brand value of $150.81 billion, it wasn’t the retail brand that saw the fastest growth last year. Home Depot grew 39.4 percent, while Lowe’s grew 49.4 percent. Lowe’s growth put it in fourth place, jumping ahead of its seventh place finish in 2017. And Alibaba, which ranked 13th in 2017, moved up to a 10th place finish at $14.61 billion in brand value, representing a growth rate of 51.1 percent. JD.com, which was in fifth place in 2017, moved down to the 11th spot last year. JD’s brand value fell 42 percent, and now has a brand value of $11.39 billion. Target, which was ranked ninth in 2017, moved up a notch to eighth place, growing 20.5 percent to a brand value of $16.48 billion.
Other retailers that made the top 50 include: T.J. Maxx, No. 22, $7.17 billion; Ross Dress for Less, No. 23, $$6.84 billion; Sainsbury’s, No. 27, $5.84 billion; El Corte Inglés, No. 28, $5.70 billion; Asda, No. 30, $5.56 billion; Macy’s, No. 32, $5.39 billion; Kohl’s, No. 35, $5.21 billion; Nordstrom, No. 36, $4.64 billion and Marshalls, No. 38, $4.18 billion;
Retailers on the list were from different industries, such as apparel, home, grocery, automotive and convenience stores.
On brand strength alone, convenience store 7 Eleven was tops, keeping its number one ranking in the 2018 Brand Strength Index at 85.9. Amazon was second at 84.4, while Home Depot was third at 83.7. T.J. Maxx, which didn’t make the top ten in the Brand Value List, was number four, with a BSI of 80.5, followed by Ikea at 80.4. Rounding out the top ten for the BSI list were eBay at 80.3; Lowe’s, also at 80.3; Auto Zone, 79.7; Coles, 78.6 and Dollar General, 78.4.
Brand Finance is a London-based brand strategy consultancy. Earlier this year it released its Apparel 50 report, with Nike as the world’s most valuable apparel brand.