Amazon and Apple are the most valuable brands in the world -- but these Chinese companies are catching up

These are the top 100 most valuable global brands for 2021, according to a company that analyzes brand equity.

Amazon and Apple are the world's most valuable brands, but watch out -- these Chinese e-commerce leaders are slowly but surely rising in the ranks.

Tech giants Amazon $(AMZN)$, Apple $(AAPL)$, Google $(GOOGL)$ and Microsoft $(MSFT)$ lead this year's list of Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands by Kantar BrandZ, a company that analyzes brand equity, but Chinese social media and video games company Tencent is close behind in fifth place.

Kantar BrandZ uses its own formula to come up with a company's value. It calls it "a holistic portrait of brand equity: one that incorporates how the market values a company's brand assets -- and how ordinary people do."

While Amazon's value increased 64% this year to reach $684 billion, Tencent grew 60% to hit $240 billion. Tesla $(TSLA)$ also skyrocketed a whopping 275% to notch $43 billion, landing at 47th place on the list.

More than a dozen other Chinese brands also made the list, including a few that more than doubled in value in the past year: alcohol maker Moutai was in 11th place with $109 billion, internet company Meituan was in 34th place with $52 billion, and farm-produce-selling platform Pinduoduo $(PDD)$ in 81st place with $22 billion.

TikTok , which placed 45th, was valued at $44 billion.

"Chinese brands are steadily and slowly progressing," Graham Staplehurst, global strategy director at Kantar BrandZ, told Reuters . "[They] have made significant headway as more companies leverage their own technological developments and demonstrate their abilities to align with the major trends shaping China and the global market."

Most European brands didn't follow the same growth trend, however. These brands made up only eight percent of the top 100, compared with 20% a decade ago. France's luxury fashion label Louis Vuitton was the most valuable European brand, placing 21st on the list. German software company SAP was 26th, followed by the UK telecommunications company Vodafone at 60th.

American brands made up the majority of the most valuable companies, comprising 74% of the list. Thirteen brands made the list for the first time, including Zoom (ZM) in 52nd place with $37 billion and Spotify $(SPOT)$ in 99th place with $19 billion.

All 100 listed brands were valued at a combined $7.1 trillion, an increase from last year's $5 trillion.