Louis Vuitton Named World’s Most Valuable Luxury Label

How do you evaluate a brand’s value within the luxury sector? It seems it’s not just about dollar signs. In a recent ranking from the advertising corporation WPP and research group Millward Brown, Louis Vuitton was awarded top place as the most valuable luxury brand, with an estimated worth of £16.1 billion. In order to reach these conclusions, the study considered corporate earnings and projected future earnings but also qualitative aspects such as distinctiveness, meaningfulness and prominence, which appeal to customers’ desire to buy into the brand’s ethos and therefore purchase its core representative products.

Prada and Chanel are the only supergiants whose values have increased in the last year, something that is also due to their clever price pointing and adaptability in places like China and Russia where luxury sales have slowed down dramatically. Other brands’ valuations have all dropped in the last year, especially Prada which decreased by a whopping 35% falling from fourth place in 2014 to seventh this year.

Karl Lagarfeld taking a bow at the Chanel Autumn/Winter 2015 show in Paris

On the rest of the list you can find Hermès (£12.4 billion) and Gucci (£8.5 billion) on the podium, followed by Chanel (£5.9 billion), Rolex (£5.5 billion), Cartier (£4.9 billion), Prada (£4.2 billion), Burberry (£3.7 billion), Michael Kors (£2.5 billion) and Tiffany (£2.1 billion).

LVMH-owned Louis Vuitton was also listed as number 14 on Forbes's list of the world's 100 most valuable brands and it is the only fashion label in the top 20. Naturally, the most profitable business sector around is tech and who else would top the chart but Apple, Microsoft and Google...