They changed the lexicon for the word, search. Now the phrase “I’ll just Google it” has helped make the internet search giant become world’s first $100 billion brand beating other household names like Microsoft, and Coca Cola to McDonald’s.
The analysts of the Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands by consultants Millward Brown found that the company’s value of $101.4 billion puts it 25 percent more valuable than computer software king Microsoft at $77.3 billion, reported Daily Mail Thursday.
Coca Cola ($68.5 billion) managed the third place in the list.
Technology companies make up the bulk of the top 10 with IBM (fourth at $67.5 billion), Apple (sixth at $63.9 billion) and China Mobile (seventh at $62.2 billion), along with consumables like cigarette brand Marlboro (10th at 50.1 billion) and burger chain McDonald’s (fifth at $67.3 billion).
Energy major GE (eight at $59.9 billion) and telecom giant Vodafone (ninth at $50.2 billion) complete the top 10 valuable brands in the world.
Google, formed at Stanford University by students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997, went up 16 percent in brand value in the past year to just break the $100 billion mark.
Google marketing manager Lorraine Twohill said: “We know that without consumers you have nothing and there is a great element of trust in us.
“We think about the consumer first and expect everything else to fall into place after that.