U.S. technology firm Apple has become the first brand to cross $1 trillion in brand value, a 15% jump from last year, a global ranking by Kantar's BrandZ showed on Wednesday.

The iPhone maker retained its crown as the world's most valuable brand for the third straight year in 2024, followed by Alphabet's Google at $753 billion and Microsoft at $713 billion, Kantar said.

Earlier this week, Apple unveiled new AI features, which are expected to rekindle demand for iPhones and reverse a sales decline for its biggest-selling product due to choppy consumer spending and resurgent tech rivals.

With a market capitalization of $3.18 trillion, Apple was just behind Microsoft at $3.22 trillion, and ahead of AI chip powerhouse Nvidia at $2.97 trillion.

Surfing a wave of AI enthusiasm and a boom in chip demand, Nvidia has entered for the first time Kantar's list of top 10 most valuable brands in the world.

Its brand value nearly tripled to over $200 billion from a year earlier, making Nvidia the sixth most valuable brand, the consulting company said.

"What really sets Nvidia apart is the faith that retail and institutional investors alike have in the firm's centrality to the biggest disruptive narratives in tech - innovations like generative AI, autonomous mobility, and spatial computing," Kantar said.

The consulting firm said its research covered over 4.3 million consumer interviews in 532 categories, and 21,000 different brands in 54 markets.

  - Reuters