Nvidia is little known, despite a market cap of $3 trillion

Apple, Microsoft, Amazon And Googling were the four leading global brands at the end of 2023, according to consultancy firm Interbrand. They are also among the five most valuable companies in the world.

The other is Nvidiawhich this week surpassed Microsoft for a time and became the largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization.

But despite its $3.1 trillion valuation (it reached $3.3 trillion before a two-day decline), Nvidia doesn't even crack the top 100 most iconic names on Interbrand's latest list, which is populated by companies like McDonald's, Starbucks, Disney And Netflix.

Nvidia's historic rise in valuation — the stock is up nearly tenfold since late 2022 — has been driven almost entirely by demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) that are at the heart of the generative artificial intelligence boom and, more broadly, because of the hype about AI. Nvidia controls more than 80% of the market for chips used to train and deploy AI software such as ChatGPT. A handful of major technology companies are the main buyers of its chips.

The speed of Nvidia's rise and its relative lack of contact with consumers means the 31-year-old company's brand recognition on Main Street lags far behind its allure on Wall Street. Number 100 on the Interbrand list for 2023 is Japanese camera maker Canon, with Dutch brewer Heineken at number 99.

“As a product company that has recently entered the global stage, Nvidia has not had the time, nor specific resources, to change its role as a brand and strengthen its brand to protect future revenues,” said Greg Silverman, Interbrand's Global Director or Brand Economics. said in an email. The risk for Nvidia, Silverman added, is that its “weak brand strength will limit its value despite its high market capitalization.”

A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment.

Nvidia's annual revenue growth has exceeded 200% in each of the past three quarters. According to LSEG, fiscal 2025 revenue is expected to nearly double from a year earlier to more than $120 billion.

The company's data center GPUs, which accounted for 85% of revenue in the most recent quarter, are installed in massive facilities and typically require a team of expensive data science and supercomputing experts to configure them to efficiently create AI software .

In contrast, Apple, ranked No. 1 by Interbrand, makes the vast majority of its money by selling iPhones and other devices to consumers around the world. Microsoft, in second place, is an enterprise sales giant but is widely known for its Windows and Office software. Amazon, in third place, strives to be the one-stop shop for consumers, and No. 4 Google is the front door to the Internet for many people.

The South Korean electronics giant completes Interbrand's top 10 Samsungtogether with three car companies (ToyotaMercedes Benz and BMW), Coca-Cola And Nike.

Further down the list, at number 24, is Nvidia rival Intelwhich is best known for making the processor the heart of laptops and PCs and for its long lifespan”Intel in” advertising campaign. Even Hewlett Packard Enterprisea company that builds servers was at number 91.

In a ranking of the 100 most valuable global brands published this month, according to Kantar BrandZ, Nvidia landed at number 6, up 18 spots from the previous survey. The brand's total value increased by 178% in one year to an estimate of approximately $202 billion. Kantar surveys business buyers to assess brands that sell primarily to other companies to arrive at an overall estimate of brand value.

“Pound for pound, Nvidia is as relevant and meaningful to that B2B buyer looking to make big, big purchases in-house for their business as Apple is to the consumer buying an iPad or a Mac,” said Marc Glovsky, senior brand strategist at Kantar, told CNBC.

And while Nvidia may not be a name your parents (or your kids) know, it does resonate in a certain corner of the consumer world. Just ask your hardcore gaming buddy.

When Nvidia was founded in 1991, AI was still an emerging field. The company's primary focus was on designing chips that could quickly draw digital triangles, a basic capability that led to a massive expansion of 3D games.

For years, Nvidia and its GeForce brand and green logo were well known to the kind of people who customized their computers to run the most advanced games. Nvidia supplies the chips for the Nintendo Switch console, which has shipped more than 140 million units worldwide.

Unlike Intel, Nvidia has never marketed its name to consumers with flashy advertising campaigns. And gaming is now just a fun side hustle for chipmaker. In the last quarter, it accounted for $2.6 billion in sales, or 10% of total sales, up 18% year over year.

When it comes to Nvidia's flagship products, companies and institutions competing for its AI chips must go through an extensive quoting and sales process, often through a computer equipment company, such as Dell or HPE. These suppliers sell complete systems, including memory, a central processor and other components. Even experts who want to train AI models are more likely to rent Nvidia access through a cloud provider than build their own server clusters.

Yet Nvidia's brand awareness is increasing rapidly. Among retail investors, Nvidia has emerged as the most widely held stock, according to data compiled and published last month by Vanda Research.

And while the name wasn't in Interbrand's top 100 for 2023, the company's data shows brand awareness has quadrupled in the past 12 months, which will help when it comes time for the next rankings, Silverman said.

Maybe by then people will know how to say the name, a topic that had been the source of debate on obscure gaming forums. The company pronounces it en-VID-ia.

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