Samsung, Google gain on Apple in brand value, customer satisfaction

Google and Samsung both made gains on rival Apple in two separate rankings released Tuesday, signaling the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant’s grip on the electronics industry is loosening.

Apple still held on to the top spots in both rankings but saw its ratings drop or barely grow while both Google and Samsung made significant gains.

In Millward Brown Optimor’s annual BrandZ list, which ranks the top 100 company brands in the world, Google saw its value grow by 5% and jumped up two spots to take second place behind Apple. That increased Google’s brand value — or how much the company’s name recognition added to its worth — from nearly $108 billion last year to nearly $114 billion in 2013.

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Samsung ranked No. 30, but that’s 25 spots higher than a year ago as its brand value increase by about 50%. That resulted in the South Korean tech giant’s brand value increasing from a little more than $14 billion to more than $21 billion.

Apple, on the other hand, was only able to grow its brand value by 1%. The silver lining for Apple, however, is that its brand value stands at more than $185 billion.

However, Apple was not able to improve its score when it came to customer satisfaction. The company saw its score in the American Customer Satisfaction Index drop by two percentage points from 83 last year to 81 in 2013.

At the same time, Google’s Motorola brand saw its score jump by 5% from 73 last year to a 77 in 2013, ranking just behind Apple. Similarly, Samsung also improved its score by 7%, going from a 71 in 2012 to an overall score of 76 this year.

[For the Record, 3:11 p.m. PDT May 21: An earlier version of this post said Samsung climbed 30 spots on the BrandZ list from 2012 to 2013. It climbed 25 spots.]

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