Apple Beats Coca-Cola, Google To Become World’s Most Valuable Brand

Apple is now the world's most valuable
brand, according to a report by
Interbrand. Reuters
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has surpassed
Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Google
(NASDAQ:GOOG) to become the world’s
most valuable brand among 100
competitors, according to the “Best
Global Brands” report for 2013
released by Interbrand, a New York-
based corporate identity and brand-
consulting company.
According to the report, while Apple
claimed the top position this year,
Google secured the second spot and
Coca-Cola, the brand that held the
No. 1 position for 13 consecutive years,
fell to third place.
“Every so often, a company changes
our lives—not just with its products,
but with its ethos. This is why,
following Coca-Cola’s 13-year run at
the top of Best Global Brands, Apple
now ranks #1,” Jez Frampton, global
chief executive at Interbrand, said in a
statement. “Tim Cook has assembled a
solid leadership team and has kept
Steve Jobs’ vision intact – a vision that
has allowed Apple to deliver on its
promise of innovation time and time
again.”

Apple, which was ranked thirty-sixth
when Interbrand’s Best Global Brands
began grading brands back in 2000, is
now valued at $98.3 billion, at almost
15 times its brand value 13 years ago.
Last year, the Cupertino, Calif.-based
technology giant was in second place
after more than doubling its valuation
from 2011.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
“Few brands have enabled so many
people to do so much so easily, which is
why Apple has legions of adoring fans,
as evidenced by the record-breaking
launch of the iPhone 5c/5s… From our
perspective, Apple’s internal brand
strength has remained steady. CEO Tim
Cook has assembled a solid team that is
aligned around the Apple vision, which
has allowed them to deliver against the
promise time and time again. There’s
been a lot of change at the top in the
last 12 months, but the alignment of
both hardware and software design
under Jonathan Ive is a major step
toward maintaining focus.”
According to the report, Apple proved
to be resilient and managed to climb up
the list despite having its reputation
somewhat tarnished by patent spats
with Samsung (KRX:005935) and a
scandal at its supplier, Foxconn, over
unsuitable labor conditions, and
emerged as the leader in the Best
Global Brands 2013 list.
Google, in second place, managed to
reach a brand valuation of $93.3
billion, while Coca-Cola got a valuation
of $79.2 billion, followed by IBM
(NYSE:IBM) with $78.8 billion.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rounded up
the top 5 with a valuation of $59.5
billion.
The other companies that made it to
the top 10 list include General
Electronics (NYSE:GE) with $46.9
billion, McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) with $
41.9 billion, Samsung (KRX:005935) with
$39.6 billion, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)
with $37.2 billion and Toyota
(NYSE:TM) with $35.3 billion.
Interbrand said that while determining
the top 100 most valuable global
brands, it examines three key aspects
that contribute to a brand’s value --
the financial performance of the
branded products or service, the role
the brand plays in influencing
consumer choice and, the brand's
ability to command a premium price or
secure earnings for the company.
In addition, each of the companies are
also required to generate 30 percent of
total revenues from outside their
domestic markets and have a presence
on at least three major continents as
well as coverage in emerging markets.
This year, the total value of the 100
Best Global Brands was $1.5 trillion --
an 8.4 percent record increase over the
total value of the 100 Best Global
Brands in 2012, the report said.

Samsung caught optimising Galaxy S4hardware to rig benchmark scores

Synthetic benchmark scores used by gadget reviewers for gauging smartphone performance are not as reliable as some make them out to be. They are not helpful in determining the phone's day to day performance, which is why our reviews focus on informing our readers the overall experience of the phone, and stay away from any benchmarks. 

While we do run benchmarks on the phones and tablets we receive for review, we like to keep the results to ourselves, as they are indicative at best, and unreliable at worst. We've also heard chatter that manufacturers have been optimising their phones to perform better in benchmarks than real world usage, and now there's evidence that the most high-profile smartphone manufacturer has been indulging in these under-handed tactics. 

Popular website Anandtech has revealed that Samsung has been optimising the Exynos 5 Octa powered Samsung Galaxy S4 for benchmarks. A forum post by @AndreiF on the Beyond3D forums in June, that alleged that Samsung was over-clocking the phone's graphics processor to 533MHz for certain benchmarks, while other apps/ games were limited to 480MHz, inspired the folks over at Anandtech to investigate the issue. 

The website informs that Samsung is over-clocking the Galaxy S4's Cortex A15 cores (the Octa SoC features two Cortex quad core processors) to 1.2GHz while running the GLBenchmark 2.5.1, AnTuTu, Linpack, and Quadrant apps for benchmarking. However, the phone's processor ran at 500MHz while using the GFXBench 2 app, for which Samsung has not optimised its hardware. 

Samsung has also tinkered the GPU (Graphics Processor) of the Galaxy S4's Exynos 5 Octa variant to run at a higher frequency while benchmarks are being run. The GPU is set to run at 533MHz while performing benchmarking tests. It runs at 480MHz, otherwise. The report also mentions that Samsung includes a code referred to as "BenchmarkBooster" that essentially trigger the phone's hardware to run at a higher clock speed when benchmark tests are run. 

The whole expose reveals that benchmarks cannot be relied upon to gauge the everyday performance of a smartphone or a tablet, and hardware makers are tricking reviewers and end users who rely only on benchmarks while recommending or buying a device. Update : Samsung has responded to the report, saying it did not use any specific tools to achieve higher benchmarks. 

However, its statement completely ignores the damning bits Anandtech found in the code. Here's Samsung's response as quoted by The Verge: "[We] did not use a specific tool on purpose to achieve higher benchmark scores." Samsung adds that, "under normal conditions, the Galaxy S4 operates up to 533MHz at its best performance." The Korean manufacturer says certain "full screen apps" (any app in which the status bar isn't present) such as the camera, browser, video player, and benchmarking tools, are classified as requiring the highest performance available. Many games don't require the maximum clock speed to run, the company notes. 

Samsung doesn't address AnandTech's discovery of strings of code that implied specific benchmark apps were being targeted for higher clock speeds, but the site did note that other benchmark apps that are not explicitly mentioned in code were also behaving the same way.