The 20 Most Valuable Brands In The World

In spite of struggling stock prices and loud public uncertainty over Tim Cook's innovative capabilities, Apple is once again the most valuable brand in the world, for the year 2013.

Every year, BrandZ and Millward Brown Optimor calculate and rank brands based on their global value. And even though Apple's growth rate decreased by 95%, the tech giant's brand value still increased by 1% from 2012 to a a whopping $185 billion.

Millward Brown VP Oscar Yuan told Business Insider that this is because the company ranks brands based not only on publicly available financial information, but "the second half, which is the unique part, is that we take in the consumer sentiment." Millward Brown polls more than 200 million consumers from 43 countries annually. In spite of everything, "Apple, in the eyes of consumers, is the gold standard."

Brand Value: $27.8 billion

Percent Change v. 2012: 34%

What Happened: MasterCard's rank flew up nine spots this year to the 20th most valuable brand in the

 world, and Millward Brown VP Oscar Yuan attributes that ascent to "the growth of mobile technology.

" As consumers up their online shopping habits, brands like Mastercard and Visa reap the 

rewards for offering noncash payment methods.