Top 100 Brands Based On Consumer Perception: Google No. 1 Two Years In A Row

For the second year in a row, Google tops FutureBrand’s list of top 100 companies ranked by consumer brand perception. Apple took the No. 2 spot, up two places from last year, followed by Microsoft at No. 3.

Going off the top 100 global companies based on market capitalization from the UK research firm PwC, FutureBrand surveyed 3,000 consumers, asking them to score the companies on 18 different attributes, including consistency, pleasure, authenticity, innovation and indispensability.

Overall, technology brands scored highest with a total of 12 tech brands making the list: Google (#1), Apple (#2), Microsoft (#13), Intel (#12), TSMC (#14), Tencent Holdings (#20), Facebook (#21), SAP (#37), IBM (#39), Oracle (#47), Cisco Systems (#61), and Qualcomm (#81).

Google, Apple and Microsoft were the only three tech companies that made it into the top ten.

FutureBrands says 48 percent of consumers surveyed ‘strongly agree’ Google possessed all 18 of the attributed it used to rank the companies.

It scores particularly highly on consistency (51%), pleasure (54%), authenticity (50%), innovation (54%) and indispensability (50%), attributes on which it also bests Apple. FutureBrand Index 2015

While still at No. 1, Google failed to score as high as it did last year in the attribute of “sense of purpose” – dropping from 60 percent in 2014 to 51 percent this year.

FutureBrand Index 2015: Top 10 Brands Based on Consumer Perception

In addition to technology, healthcare was another “best performing” sector, and Europe the “best performing” region. The survey findings showed American companies suffered the sharpest declines in perception strength.

According to FutureBrand, the goal of re-ranking the top 100 largest companies by brand perception offers a glimpse into the long-term success of the world’s most profitable organizations.

“Our research demonstrated that financial value and past performance are no guarantees of future brand…that organizations with the strongest perceptions by our measures have a quantifiable competitive advantage and are more ‘future proof’ than their peers.”