Australia’s dominant telco is now ranked at number 82 in the tenth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands just released.

From the global telco industry, Chinese giant Huawei is new to the top 20 tech brands this year, with the rising telecom infrastructure provider valued at $15.3billion. Photographic software to marketing platform company Adobe, valued at $7.4bn, also makes it to the top 20 for the first time.

The brand report from multinational communictions group WPP and research company Millward Brown, says Huawei has invested $600 million in 5G research to challenge Sweden’s Ericsson in telecoms infrastructure “while also boosting its status as a handset manufacturer”.

And, with its entry into the top 20 brand list, Adobe boosted its subscriber numbers by 600,000 in Q4 2014 alone and consolidated its position “as one of the few end-to-end marketing agencies capable of both creating a campaign and optimising it in digital channels”.

There’s no surprise, however, that Apple has regained its position as number one in the most valuable brand rankings worlwide, overtaking Google and growing by 67% to record a total brand value of $247 billion.

Google’s performance paled by comparison to Apple, growing just 9% to $173.7 billion, while Microsoft, now worth $115.5 billion, is the new no.3, rising one position with value growth of 28%.

It’s worth noting that one research analyst report released this week shows that Apple is threatening Samsung in the wearables market with the Apple Watch, as the company prepares to ship 20 million of them, constituting the majority of shipments in the smart watch market.

In the brand top 100 list, headed by Apple, Samsung comes in at 11th with a brand value of $21.6 billion, down 17% from its ninth ranking in 2014.
According to the brand value report, Apple’s growth has been driven by successful sales of the iPhone 6, with the brand once again seen as leading the curve with an approach that generates “real benefits for consumers, making life easier in a fun and relevant way”.

And, the report attributes the success of Apple, Google and the other tech brands in this year’s listing to reflecting the “power of the technology sector”, which grew the total valuation of the Top 20 brands by 24% to just over $1 trillion. Retail was the only category to match this performance, growing by the same percentage.

And, the fastest riser in the BrandZ Top 100 is Facebook, growing 99% to $71.1 billion, achieved through its successful strategy of acquiring other social apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp, and “an understanding of how to monetise and cross-sell its acquired platforms by selling optimal advertising solutions to businesses with a specific target audience”.

Also reported in the list of top 100 brands, e-commerce boosts retail brand value as the Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba enters the ranking and overtakes Amazon.

Alibaba entered the retail ranking at $66.4 billion, helping to grow the retail category ranking by 24% and overtaking both Amazon and Walmart.

The most valuable retail brands Alibaba and Amazon, which lack physical stores, are now worth more than Walmart, which has 11,000 stores worldwide.

The BrandZ Top 20 Most Valuable Global Technology Brands 2015

Rank 2015	Brand	Brand Value 2015 ($M)	Brand Value Change	Rank 2014
1	Apple	246,992	67%	2
2	Google	173,652	9%	1
3	Microsoft	115,500	28%	4
4	IBM	93,987	-13%	3
5	Tencent	76,572	43%	5
6	Facebook	71,121	99%	7
7	Baidu	40,041	35%	8
8	SAP	38,225	5%	6
9	HP	23,039	18%	11
10	Oracle	21,680	4%	10
11	Samsung	21,602	-17%	9
12	Accenture	20,183	11%	12
13	Intel	18,385	58%	18
14	Cisco	16,060	17%	16
15	Siemens	15,496	-8%	13
16	Huawei	15,335	N/A	NEW
17	LinkedIn	12,200	-2%	17
18	Twitter	11,447	-17%	15
19	Sony	7,989	4%	19
20	Adobe	7,399	N/A	NEW