Nvidia remains a little-known brand despite briefly passing Apple, Microsoft in market cap

Apple,


Microsoft,


Amazon
and


Google
were
the
four
leading
global
brands
at
the
end
of
2023,
according
to
consulting
firm

Interbrand.
They’re
are
also
four
of
the
world’s
five
most
valuable
companies.

The
other
is


Nvidia,
which
for
a
time
this
week,

surpassed
Microsoft
to
become
the
largest
company
in
the
world
by
market
cap.

But
despite
its
$3.1
trillion
valuation
(it
reached
$3.3
trillion
before
a
two-day
slide),
Nvidia
doesn’t
even
crack
the
top
100
most
iconic
names
on
Interbrand’s
most
recent
list,
which
is
populated
by
such
companies
as


McDonald’s,


Starbucks,


Disney
and


Netflix.

Nvidia’s
historic
rise
in
valuation
—
the
stock
has
climbed
almost
ninefold
since
the
end
of
2022
—
has
been
driven
almost
entirely
by
demand
for
its
graphics
processing
units
(GPUs)
that
are
at
the
heart
of
the
boom
in
generative
artificial
intelligence
and,
more
broadly,
by
the
hype
over
AI.
Nvidia
has
over
80%
of
the
market
for
chips
used
to
train
and
deploy
AI
software
like
ChatGPT.
A
handful
of
huge
tech
companies
are
the
primary
buyers
of
its
chips.

The
speed
of
Nvidia’s
ascent
and
its
relative
lack
of
contact
with
consumers
along
the
way
combines
to
put
the
31-year-old
company’s
brand
recognition
on
Main
Street
far
behind
its
allure
on
Wall
Street.
No.
100
on
Interbrand’s
list
for
2023
is
Japanese
camera
maker
Canon,
with
Dutch
brewer
Heineken
at
No.
99.

“As
a
product
company
recently
moving
onto
a
global
stage,
Nvidia
has
not
had
time,
nor
has
it
dedicated
resources,
to
change
its
role
of
brand
and
strengthen
its
brand
to
protect
future
revenue,”
Greg
Silverman,
Interbrand’s
global
director
of
brand
economics,
said
in
an
email.
The
risk
for
Nvidia,
Silverman
added,
is
that
its
“weak
brand
strength
will
limit
how
valuable
it
will
be,
despite
its
market
cap
heights.”

A
spokesperson
for
Nvidia
declined
to
comment.

Nvidia’s
annual
revenue
growth
has
exceeded
200%
in
each
of
the
past
three
quarters.
For
fiscal
2025,
revenue
is
expected
to
almost
double
from
a
year
earlier
to
over
$120
billion,
according
to
LSEG.

The
company’s
data
center
GPUs,
which
made
up
85%
of
sales
in
the

most
recent
quarter,
are
installed
in
massive
facilities,
and
typically
require
a
team
of
expensive
data
science
and
supercomputing
experts
to
configure
them
to
efficiently
create
AI
software.

By
contrast,
Apple,
ranked
No.
1
by
Interbrand,
makes
the
vast
majority
of
its
money
by
selling
iPhones
and
other
devices
to
consumers
across
the
globe.
Microsoft,
ranked
second,
is
an
enterprise
sales
giant,
but
is
ubiquitously
known
for
its
Windows
and
Office
software.
Third-ranked
Amazon
strives
to
be
consumers’
everything
store,
and
No.
4
Google
is,
for
many
people,
the
front
door
to
the
internet.

Rounding
out
Interbrand’s
top
10
are
South
Korean
electronics
giant


Samsung,
along
with
three
car
companies
(Toyota,
Mercedes-Benz
and


BMW),


Coca-Cola
and


Nike.

Further
down
the
list,
at
No.
24,
is
Nvidia
rival


Intel,
which
is
best
known
for
making
the
processor
at
the
heart
of
laptops
and
PCs
and
for
its
long-running
“Intel
Inside”
advertising
campaign.
Even


Hewlett
Packard
Enterprise,
a
company
that
builds
servers,
made
the
list
at
No.
91.

However,
a
competing
survey
shows
that
Nvidia’s
brand
value
is
catching
up
to
that
of
its
peers.

In
a
ranking
of
the
100
most
valuable
global
brands

published
this
month
by
Kantar
BrandZ,
Nvidia
landed
at
No.
6,
leaping
18
places
from
its
prior
survey.
The
brand’s
overall
valued
jumped
178%
in
a
year
to
an
estimate
of
about
$202
billion.
Kantar
surveys
enterprise
buyers
to
evaluate
brands
that
primarily
sell
to
other
businesses
to
come
up
with
a
total
estimate
of
brand
value.

“Nvidia
is
pound
for
pound
as
relevant
and
meaningful
to
that
B2B
buyer
that’s
looking
to
make
big,
large
purchases
in-house
for
their
company
as
Apple
is
to
the
consumer
who’s
buying
an
iPad
or
a
Mac,”
Marc
Glovsky,
senior
brand
strategist
at
Kantar,
told
CNBC.

And
while
Nvidia
may
not
be
a
name
known
to
your
parents
—
or
your
kids
—
it
does
have
resonance
in
a
particular
corner
of
the
consumer
world.
Just
ask
your
hard-core
gaming
buddy.

When
Nvidia
was
founded
in
1991,
AI
was
a
nascent
field.
The
company’s
primary
focus
was
on
designing
chips
that
could
draw
digital
triangles
quickly,
a
basic
capability
that
led
to
a
huge
expansion
in
3D
games.

For
years,
Nvidia,
and
its
GeForce
brand
and
green
logo
were
well
known
to
the
type
of
people
who
tweaked
their
computers
to
run
the
most
advanced
games.
Nvidia
provides
the
chips
for
the
Nintendo
Switch
console,
which
has
shipped
over
140
million
units
around
the
world.

Unlike
Intel,
Nvidia
never
put
its
name
in
front
of
consumers
with
flashy
ad
campaigns.
And
gaming
is
now
just
a
nice
side
business
for
chipmaker.
In
the
latest
quarter,
it
accounted
for
$2.6
billion
of
revenue,
or
10%
of
total
sales,
rising
18%
year
over
year.

When
it
comes
to
Nvidia’s
most
important
products,
companies
and
institutions
vying
for
its
AI
chips
have
to
go
through
an
extensive
quoting
and
sales
process,
often
through
a
computer-equipment
company,
like


Dell
or
HPE.
Those
vendors
sell
complete
systems,
including
memory,
a
central
processor
and
other
parts.
Even
experts
who
want
to
train
AI
models
are
more
likely
to
rent
Nvidia
access
through
a
cloud
provider
than
build
their
own
server
clusters.

Still,
Nvidia’s
name
recognition
is
rapidly
increasing.
Among
retail
investors,
Nvidia
has
emerged
as
the
most
widely
held
stock,
according
to
data
collected
and
published
last
month
by
Vanda
Research.

And
while
the
name
didn’t
make
Interbrand’s
top
100
list
for
2023,
the
firm’s
data
shows
its
brand
awareness
quadrupled
in
the
past
12
months,
which
will
help
when
it’s
time
for
the
next
ranking,
Silverman
said.

Maybe
by
then
people
will
know
how
to
say
its
name,
a
topic
that’d
been
the
source
of
debate

on
obscure
gaming
forums.
The
company
pronounces
it
en-VID-ia.

WATCH:

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