- Nvidia recently joined Microsoft and Apple in the multi-trillion dollar valuation club.
- But Nvidia's branding doesn't have the household name recognition of the iconic Apple logo or Nike swoosh.
- The chipmaker is not included in consulting firm Interbrand's list of the top 100 brands in the world.
Some of the world's most iconic brands are recognizable just by describing their logo.
Apples. Golden arches. Swoosh.
But what company comes to consumers' minds when they hear Green Spiral? Is it an eye? A portal to another dimension?
This is a question best suited for Nvidia. The company has recently grown into a multi-trillion-dollar business thanks to valuable chips that are crucial to the race to become artificial intelligence.
While the current valuation puts CEO Jensen Huang's company on par with Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, the chipmaker may still have a long way to go before it becomes a household name.
According to New York consulting firm Interbrand, the 100 most valuable brands in the world in 2023 include storied companies such as Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Nike and McDonald's, brands with logos and products that evoke immediately familiar memories in people's minds.
But Nvidia isn't on the list.
“As a product company that recently entered the global stage, Nvidia didn't have the time or resources to transform its role and strengthen its brand to protect future revenue,” Greg Silverman, global director of brand economics at Interbrand, told CNBC.
An Nvidia spokesman declined to comment.
A tale of two semiconductor companies
Part of Nvidia's brand problems may be that the company hasn't focused on consumer products since it was founded in 1993. Nvidia's chips were originally designed for video games, and it has become a favorite of computer enthusiasts.
Intel, a once dominant player in the market but which has lost ground in recent years, faced similar branding problems before launching its “Intel Inside” campaign in the 1990s.
“Prior to the 'Intel Inside' campaign, Intel was largely unknown to consumers,” the company says on its website. Intel's market capitalization was about $132 billion as of June 23, compared to Nvidia's $3.1 trillion, yet it currently ranks 24th on Interbrand's list of most valuable brands.
Nvidia's stock price and name recognition have soared in the past few months as the company's chips are in demand to power the technologies behind AI.
Companies like Meta, Tesla and Microsoft need Nvidia's limited supply of GPUs and are sometimes fighting over them.
That chip The 31-year-old company was set up for its latest trillion-dollar success story, and now dominates the AI computing market, but its position is not guaranteed.
A growing number of companies and startups are trying to carve out their own space in the chip market, some of which, like Meta and Microsoft, rely on Nvidia chips.
Once Nvidia's dominance in the chip world fades, getting people to recognize its swirling green eyes will be the least of the company's problems.
