For the first time, China has claimed two top spots in the world’s biggest brands as two of its firms, Alibaba and Chinese tech group Tencent featured alongside giants such as Google and Apple.
Ranked at No. 9., Jack Ma’s Alibaba has seen its brand value nearly double to $113 billion as the e-commerce company has expanded further into fields such as mobile payments and cloud computing.
Shenzhen-based Tencent (TCEHY) broke into the annual BrandZ top 10 ranking in 2017 and has become more robust over the past year. It now holds fifth place — behind Google, Apple, Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) but above Facebook (FB) — with a brand value of $179 billion, up 65% compared to last year. Specializing in online games, apps, instant messaging services and online payments, the company has a market capitalization of $490 billion.