While Huawei battle Google, Apple is going from strength to strength.

The tech giant topped Forbes’ annual list of the World’s Most Valuable Brands for the ninth year in a row.

Apple’s brand is worth $205,5 billion, up 12% from last year. It is also the first time a brand has crossed the $200 billion threshold.

It should be noted that brand value is not the same as company value, because Apple has already ticked over the $1 trillion mark in the latter.

Apple has made an art form of moving its customer base from one product category to another. They also took the top spot in Laptop Mag’s annual tech support showdown for offering the world’s most reliable customer service.

Mac users adopted the iPod, followed by the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Customers trust the brand will work seamlessly across all categories in the Apple ecosystem, which has helped make the Cupertino, California-based company the most valuable in the world. Services is the next frontier for the company and brand.

While Apple maintains the top spot, Google is gaining ground with a value of $167,7 billion, up 23%. Facebook, on the other hand, is not looking great.

One tech brand that was dinged over the past 12 months is Facebook, which ranks fifth overall. It was the only brand in the top ten to fall in value, to an estimated $88.9 billion, down 6% from last year. The number of active Facebook users reached 2.4 billion this year, but the social media brand has been hampered by concerns around data protection, privacy policies and fake news.

They’re also fighting with CrossFit at the moment, but that’s beside the point.

Back to the numbers:

The 100 most valuable brands are worth a cumulative $2.33 trillion, up 8% over last year. Tech brands were the top gainers, led by e-commerce giant Amazon, up 37% to $97 billion. Other big winners: Netflix (+34%), Google (+27%) and Adobe (+27%). H&M had the biggest fall, down 12% to $11.5 billion. The Swedish retailer has struggled and cut prices last year on clothing to clear excess inventory. More than 20 brands declined in value, including ESPN (-10%), GE (-8%) and Hyundai (-8%).

Here’s a look at the top 10:

You can check out the full list here.

And for all your Apple-related needs, head on over to Digicape, South Africa’s largest independent Apple retailer.

[source:forbes]