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Apple’s Brand Worth a Whopping $200 Billion as Facebook’s Value Falters

Last Updated
Steven Buchko
Last Updated

By CCN.com: Forbes’ 2019 list of the world’s most valuable brands  is out. For the ninth straight year, Apple takes the cake. The tech behemoth’s brand is currently worth $205.5 billion – a 12% increase from last year. All but two of the top 10 brands saw their value increase since 2018. Facebook lost 6% over the year. Worth close to $95 billion last year, Facebook’s brand value has dropped to less than $89 billion.

Top 5 most valuable brands 2019
Apple tops Forbes’ list of most valuable worldwide brands while Facebook slips. | Source: Forbes

Apple’s Secret to Success

Although iPhone sales are on the decline this year (17% less  than the year-ago period), Apple’s services revenue is hitting new highs. The company brought in $10.9 billion of revenue  from services in Q1 2019 – a record high and a 19% jump over last year. Morgan Stanley expects this figure to grow to more than $100 billion  per year by 2023.

Apple services revenue
Quarterly revenue from Apple services is beginning to go parabolic. | Source: BBC/Apple 

Apple has created a cult-like audience of supporters who will seemingly follow the brand to the ends of the earth. The company consists of an ever-growing ecosystem of Apple products and services ranging from standard hardware (MacBooks and iPhones) to wearables (Apple Watch) to services (Apple Pay, iTunes, etc.). Plus, fans love the interconnectivity of each piece of the ecosystem.

Even though Apple faces stiff competition from cheaper phone alternatives like Huawei, it’s successfully migrating users to other, more profitable sectors of its ecosystem. The launch of the Apple TV+ streaming service this fall will continue to push along this migration.

Facebook May Be Down, but It’s Not Out

Throughout this year and last, Facebook has been at the forefront of news outlets but not for the reasons the company would like. Since Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, report upon report has surfaced, exposing the social media company for its lack of concern for users’ privacy, platform censorship, and consistently poor security practices.

The number of Facebook users is dropping, and the once premiere workplace is having trouble hiring new employees. It’s no wonder that the brand’s value is following suit.

Social Media usage over the past 3 years - Facebook declining
The number of Facebook users is declining, but Instagram’s count is on the rise. Will it be enough to save Facebook’s brand? | Source: Edison Research

Facebook’s brand outlook is rather grim at this point, but that doesn’t mean the company can’t turn it around. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that his team is shifting away from public communication channels like the News Feed to focus more on private user communication . Additionally, Facebook is set to launch a new cryptocurrency in the upcoming months, so a trustworthy brand, data privacy, and security are paramount.

If Facebook can successfully prove that it has a renewed seriousness about security and privacy, it could pull the brand’s value out of freefall. With the company’s abysmal track record, though, we won’t hold our breath.