Apple has taken the top spot as the UK’s best business brand in Superbrands’ annual ranking.

This year’s league table – identified through a survey of 2500 UK business professionals and judged on quality, reliability and distinction – saw the electronics firm take the crown from British Airways. The airline,

which has held


first


position for the past three years

, dropped to fourth place.

BP rose 12 places to take second spot, while Microsoft claimed third position. Notably, two of the top three companies were from the

tech sector, reflecting a dominance

that has been seen in other recent brand rankings.

This year, GlaxoSmithKline, Bosch and Barclaycard re-entered the top 20, while Hilton Hotels & Resorts and Boeing exited.

Stephen Cheliotis, CEO of The Centre for Brand Analysis and chairman of Superbrands, said: “While Apple has stepped up one place to overtake a falling British Airways, both brands are in an interesting period of flux and their future direction and success may well be determined by what happens over the next year in terms of service delivery, product innovation and balance of positive and negative coverage and discussion.

“While the B2B rankings have shown relative calm, with another year of turbulent market changes ahead of us it is clear that brands looking to safeguard their future need to continue to review and invest in their long-term brand plans.”

Superbrands’ top 10 UK B2B brands:

1. Apple
2. BP
3. Microsoft
4. British Airways
5. Emirates
6. Google
7. PayPal
8. Shell
9. Visa
10. Mastercard