The Value of Intangible Assets of Corporations Worldwide Rebounds to All-Time High of USD 80 Trillion in 2024
February 28, 2025
Global corporate intangible value made a strong recovery in 2024, growing by 28% from 2023, and surpassing its 2021 peak. This resurgence underscores the sustained growth of intangible asset value, marking a 13-fold increase since 1996.
Figure 1: Global Corporate Intangible Value (USD trillion)
Source: Authors’ calculations based on WIPO’s Global Innovation Index and Brand Finance Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) 2024
Intangible assets include research and development (R&D), intellectual property, brands, software, databases, organizational assets, and skills. These assets are crucial for modern businesses to remain competitive and innovative.
In collaboration with Brand Finance, we identify the top global 5,000 firms in terms of their ownership of intangible assets for each country in the Global Innovation Index. We then construct an intangible asset intensity indicator that measures the proportion of intangible assets in the total enterprise value of the top 15 firms per country (see GII indicator 7.1.1 and the Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) 2024 data from Brand Finance). Additionally, individual GII country profiles are available, providing insights into the top 15 companies and offering full country briefs on their intangible asset landscape.
Key Observations
Technological innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) continue to boost the value of intangible assets by improving software, marketing and customer relationships both as standalone assets and through synergies.
Leading Economies
The United States (US) leads as the most intangible asset-intensive economy, with its top 15 firms’ intangible assets making up 90% of the total enterprise value (see Table 1). Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (UK) and France follow closely behind.
India stands out as the only middle-income economy in the top 10, showing rapid growth in sectors rich in intangible assets, ranking eighth. Indonesia (11th), Thailand (20th), Brazil (21st) and Morocco (25th) also secure spots in the top 25. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia jumps to the 24th position in 2024, up from 33rd in 2023.
These firm-level trends align with the findings of WIPO’s World Intangible Investment Highlights 2024 report, co-published with Luiss Business School. The report shows that the US and France lead in intangible investment intensity — measured as intangible investment relative to gross domestic product (GDP), while India is catching up rapidly.
There is significant variation in intangible asset intensities across economies, largely due to the differences in industry composition. In the US, for example, intangible assets make up 90% of the total enterprise value of the top 15 firms, underscoring their role as the primary driver of corporate value in the world's largest economy. NVIDIA is a standout case, whose meteoric rise in valuation, has been fueled by its proprietary chip architecture that powers advancements in AI, and a substantial surge in R&D investment.
Among the top 25 economies, intensities range from 90% in the US to 84% in the UK, 76% in Indonesia and 64% in Morocco. Notably, the People’s Republic of China’s corporate intangible asset intensity declined in 2024, following a peak in 2022 and a drop in 2023. This reflects both a downturn in Chinese stock market performance in 2024 and a divergence from the stock market rallies observed in Western economies.
Table 1: Economies with highest intangible asset intensity, and their most intangible-asset-rich firm
Source: Authors’ calculations based on WIPO’s Global Innovation Index and Brand Finance Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) 2024
Regional Leaders
Table 2 presents the regional leaders in terms of highest average intangible asset intensity within their respective regions. The United States and Ireland lead their respective regions, reflecting their dominance in knowledge-driven intangibles-rich industries. Notably, Brazil, South Africa, India, and Indonesia emerge as top performers in their respective regions, underscoring the growing reliance on intangible assets as key drivers of economic progress in middle-income economies striving to close the gap with high-income nations.
Table 2: Regional leaders in average intangible asset intensity
Top 3 economies by region
Source: Authors’ calculations based on WIPO’s Global Innovation Index and Brand Finance Global Intangible Finance Tracker (GIFT) 2024
Company Insights
- Technology and pharmaceutical companies continue to dominate among the most intangible asset rich firms (see Table 1).
- Apple retains its spot as the most intangible-rich firm globally, indicating its success in technological innovations.
- Other companies such as Accenture, Novo Nordisk, ASML Holding and AstraZeneca follow, perhaps due to their heavy investment in technology and pharmaceuticals.
- The energy and petrochemical sectors also feature prominently, not only in high-income economies such as Norway (Equinor ASA) and Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabian Oil Company) but also middle-income economies such as India (Reliance Industries Ltd.), Indonesia (PT Chandra Asri Pacific) and Thailand (Delta Electronics PCL).
- The growing presence of financial services firms in the ranking — such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Australia), Brookfield Corporation (Canada), Nu Holdings Ltd. (Brazil), and Attijariwafa Bank SA (Morocco) — highlights how banking and investment firms are increasingly driven by data, algorithms, and digital services. As financial institutions shift toward tech-enabled business models, intangible assets like software, AI-driven analytics, and proprietary platforms are becoming central to their corporate value and competitive edge.
Background
Our plan is to expand the partnership with Brand Finance to bring meaningful insights into the growing significance of intangible assets in the global economy. This supports a broader initiative at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to better understand and value intangible assets, including WIPO’s work on Intellectual Property Finance, as well as WIPO’s collaboration with Luiss Business School to produce comprehensive and timely estimates of investment in intangible assets through the WIPO-Luiss World Intangible Investment Highlights (WIIH), with the next edition to be released in July 2025.