Another month, another top of brands. Another brand consulting company, Millward Brown Optimor, decided to set-up another way of having brands ranked, so we got another top where Microsoft got the first place.

This time the goal of the study was to calculate the value a brand is expected to generate for its owner in the future. The top brands were shown to contribute tens of billions to future earnings..

The top was calculated base on three criterias:

• brand’s earning power going forward
• intangible earnings, which was based on financial data for a brand owner’s business, such profits and operating costs;
• brand contribution, which used survey data from 650,000 consumers on how brand affects their purchasing decisions.

Their top global brands looks like this:

1. Microsoft – $62bn
2. General Electric – $55.8bn
3. Coca Cola – $41.4bn
4. China Mobile – $39.2bn
5. Marlboro – $38.5bn
6. Wal-Mart – $37.6bn
7. Google – $37.4bn
8. IBM – $36.1bn
9. Citi – $31bn
10. Toyota – $30.2bn

You can read more about the top as well as check the Top 10 brands in the UK and Top 10 brands in technology here (via)