New Delhi, Jul 28 (IANS): With a brand value of $241.2 billion (a 17 per cent increase year-over-year), Apple has topped the Forbes' annual list of the World's Most Valuable Brands, which looked at the top 100 companies from the fiscal year 2019.

Google with $207.5 billion (a 24 per cent increase from same period last year) and Microsoft with $163 billion (a 30 per cent rise) were the first and second runners-up, respectively.

The top 100 most valuable brands in total were worth $2.54 trillion, up from $2.33 trillion last year.

Companies based in the US made up more than 50 of the top 100.

The tech sector was the most common in the rankings with 20 companies, followed by 14 in financial services, 11 in auto and eight in retail.

"Companies including Amazon, Netflix and PayPal all show substantial gains in brand value since last year's list, falling in line with trends related to e-commerce, streaming and digital payments," Forbes said on Monday.

There are some newcomers too.

"Brands like Nintendo, Burger King, Hennessy and AXA, for example, all made their way onto the ranking, while Philips, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nissan and Kellogg's were knocked off," the list revealed.

Several brands had notable shifts in the annual rankings.

Adidas went from 61st to 51th and and Netflix moved up from 38th to 26th.

Some luxury brands also saw significant changes, with Chanel going from 79th to 52nd and Cartier from 64th to 56th.

Some of the companies with the biggest losses were legacy tech companies like GE, HP Inc and IBM, which saw total values decrease by 14 per cent, 12 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, revealed the report.