June 12 (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) has become the first

brand to cross $1 trillion in brand value, a 15% jump from last

year, while chipmaker Nvidia's ( NVDA ) value has nearly

tripled, a global ranking by Kantar's BrandZ showed on

Wednesday.

The iPhone maker retained its crown as the world's most

valuable brand for the third straight year in 2024, followed by

Alphabet's Google at $753 billion and Microsoft ( MSFT )

at $713 billion, Kantar said.

Earlier this week, Apple ( AAPL ) unveiled new AI features, which are

expected to rekindle demand for iPhones and reverse a sales

decline for its biggest-selling product due to choppy consumer

spending and resurgent tech rivals.

"Apple ( AAPL ) has been consistently able to deliver products,

services and messaging, which has closely resonated with the

consumers, creating a strong fan-following for the brand,"

Counterpoint analyst Varun Mishra said.

With a market capitalization of $3.18 trillion, Apple ( AAPL ) is

ahead of AI chip powerhouse Nvidia ( NVDA ) at $2.97 trillion.

Surfing a wave of AI enthusiasm and a boom in chip demand,

Nvidia ( NVDA ) has for the first time entered Kantar's list of top 10

most valuable brands in the world.

"Nvidia ( NVDA ), led by the Godfather of AI Jensen (Huang) and the

creator of this AI Revolution, is now a household brand as its

GPU chips are the new gold and oil in the tech world," said Dan

Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Its brand value jumped to over $200 billion from a year

earlier, making Nvidia ( NVDA ) the sixth most valuable brand, Kantar

said.

"What really sets Nvidia ( NVDA ) apart is the faith that retail and

institutional investors alike have in the firm's centrality to

the biggest disruptive narratives in tech," the consulting

company said.

Oracle, which offers AI-powered cloud services,

also made its debut in Kantar's top 10 at the ninth place. Its

brand value jumped 58% to $145 billion.

Kantar said its research covered over 4.3 million consumer

interviews in 532 categories, and 21,000 different brands in 54

markets.

(Reporting by Matteo Allievi; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)