Google continues inexorable rise to the top 

The latest global survey on the power of brands sees the increasingly ubiquitous US giant move into second place behind Wal Mart 

In what is a case of the new world overtaking the old US search engine giant Google  has leapfrogged another giant brand, Coca-Cola  to become the second most powerful brand in the world behind Asda owner Wal Mart. 

In what is surely a sign of our increasingly technology dependent times Google has moved ahead of Coke. Analysts Brand Finance who conduct the annual survey says that Google is an instant hit wherever in the world it operates. 

While things are not going better with Coke it looks even worse for Toyota. The analysts say that while the survey was completed before the solids hits the air conditioning for the car giant the signs are that the knock on effect could be devastating for the world’s largest car manufacturer. 

“Toyota Was much too slow off the mark to face its problems and the price of that will be destruction of brand value” says David Haigh chief executive of  Brand Finance. The annual listing ranks companies  by the strength, risk and future potential of a brand over its competitors. Toyota is 10^th this time but is most unlikely to feature in the Top 10 next time the list is compiled. 

Coke used to top the listing regularly but now finds itself in their spot and appears to be in a long term decline.  Most valuable British brand is Vodafone  which leapfrogged HSBC to take seventh place in the listing of 500 top brands. Other British brands on the up include Barclays, which has just announced huge profits, up to 44^th from 77^th and also supermarket chain Tesco up from 20^th to 16^th. 

The Top Ten global brands with values are:

1. Wal Mart £25.8bn
2. Google £22.6bn
3. Coca Cola £21.8bn
4. IBM £21.1bn
5. Microsoft £21bn
6. GE £19.9bn
7. Vodafone £18.2billion
8. HSBC £18.2bn
9. Hewlett-Packard £17.1bn

10.Toyota £17.0bn 

One interesting thing is the banking sector where the banks that did not need to be bailed out by their taxpaying customers  such as Barclays have fared well while the ones that did not have done badly – a reflection of customer power if ever there was one.