Overview

Visual Capitalist, founded in 2011 by Jeff Desjardins, creates and curates visual content focusing on the newest business and investment trends. The platform has gathered the 100 most valuable brands in 2021, determined by companies’ financial value and contribution.

Despite the pandemic’s severe impacts, the world’s most valuable brands have increased in value by more than 42 percent in the previous year, reaching a combined worth of nearly US$7 trillion for the Top 100 global brands. Technology-driven brands account for more than half of the total value in the list, followed by media entertainment, and apparel.

With the onset of the pandemic, tech brands have experienced unprecedented demand for their products and services. At the same time, across sectors, brands which have pushed the boundaries of technological innovation have remained a cut above the rest, able to pivot their business to adapt to consumers’ changing needs. 2021 is the final call to get on board for all brands still stuck in the 20th century.

David Haigh, CEO of Brand Finance for BrandFinance

Amazon, Apple, and Google top the growth chart, while Tesla, Tiktok, and Pinduoduo occupy the top three positions of the fastest-growing brands’ chart.

Namepicks 

Apple

Apple is one of the world’s most famous and well-known brands. The company’s name was the idea of Steve Jobs, inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Jobs explained that he thought the name “Apple” was “fun, spirited and not intimidating. Here is what brands can learn about branding and domains from Apple.

Haier

Haier is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Haier Group, one of the world’s major appliance brands and a global leader in consumer electronics.

Haier has a domain name that exactly matches their brand name – Haier.com. The majority of successful global brands operate on similar names that communicate trust and authority.

Spotify

Spotify is one of the most widely used music streaming platforms. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, the company’s founders, came up with the name Spotify by accident.

Martin and I were sitting in different rooms shouting ideas back and forth of company names. We were even using jargon generators and stuff. Out of the blue, Martin shouted a name that I misheard as Spotify” “I immediately googled the name and realized there were no Google hits for the word at all. A few minutes later, we registered the domain names, and off we went.

Daniel Ek, Founder & CEO of Spotify for Quora

The exact brand name domain was registered in 2006. Later, the company claimed that the term was derived from the words “spot” and “identify.

Uber

Uber was founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. One winter night during a tech conference, the idea came up when the duo couldn’t get a cap. The company launched its first ride in 2010 and is making history, bringing it to a current market capitalization of $85.314 billion.

Uber comes from a German term that means “above all the rest .”Uber was initially registered as UberCab, but the second part was quickly dropped as its founders didn’t see Uber as a traditional taxicab, so there was no point in attaching the term “cab” to its name. Universal Music was among the first investors, exchanging the exact brand match domain uber.com it owned from an earlier investment for a small stake. The music company sold its shares for a great return next year in Series A funding, but it is nowhere near what it would be worth today.

Highlights

99 companies out of 100 operate on .com domain names, with 95 owning an exact brand match domain.

A solid online presence is critical to any company’s success. An exact-match top-level domain name ensures that the business will be easily found online, as the default domain is what customers will look for when trying to find the brand online.

Here is what owners of premium domain names share about the benefits of owning and investing in such names. 

While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

Other resources

• Top 100 Most Inspiring Brands 2022 by Wunderman Thompson and Their Domain Name Choices
• What Makes Premium Domain Names Strategic Assets?
• Why Investing in Your Branding is the Best Strategy for Your Business
• Digital Real Estate: The Power of Domains with Andrew Rosener

How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.

branding brands business domain name domains most naming valuable worlds