Is Apple top of America’s Billion Dollar Brands Club?

Apple stands tall as the most valuable brand in America, with a host of other tech companies making up the Top 50.

New rankings released by Brand Finance, a US brand valuation agency, shows the Cupertino giant as the ‘Best Global Brand’ in the US, with a brand estimated to be worth over US$104 billion.

Nearly $40 billion behind ranked internet search engine Google, who came in second place with an estimated brand value of $68 billion, closely followed by Microsoft in third place with $62 billion.

Ranking the top 500 companies across the US, the rankings are based on royalty rate estimates that would be charged for the use of the brand, as well as taking into consideration future revenue.

With three tech companies topping the pile, IBM, Intel and Cisco also joined the list, coming in at 9th, 18th and 21st - with estimated brand values of $41 billion, $23 billion and $21 billion respectively.

Other notable inclusions came in the form of Oracle (22nd - $20 billion), HP (24th - $19 billion) and Facebook (48th - $10 billion) who helped complete the Top 50 list.

Is this a true reflection of Apple’s worth?