Visa swipes top spot for business brands from Apple
BRITISH firms have chosen Visa as the best brand for business services, knocking tech firm Apple off the top spot, a poll out today reveals.
Visa topped a survey of 2,000 companies and was joined by several other payment companies in the higher reaches of the Superbrands UK league table.
Superbrands said the shift in commerce to the internet has made firms like PayPal, Barclaycard and American Express increasingly important to other businesses.
Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange, GlaxoSmithKline and IBM fell out of the top 20. Rolls-Royce, which topped the survey in 2011 and 2012, fell to 13th place.
“Certainly those brands involved in enabling the virtual economy have continued to dominate the list while traditional businesses like GlaxoSmithKline have moved backwards,” said Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the Superbrands expert council.
British Airways, while falling from second to fifth place in the eyes of businesses, was rated the best consumer brand by a similar poll of 3,000 people. Apple, meanwhile, slumped from second-best consumer brand to 14th in this year’s poll.
Technology firms in general slid down the brand rankings, with Google, Facebook and Microsoft all losing ground. The exception was online retailer Amazon, which made its debut in the top 20, in 13th position.