How was Apple doing in the past year? We already know how successful iPhone 4S and iPad 2 are, because we were talking about them in the whole year. But except for these superficial things that we all know, what else can proves that Apple was the biggest winner in 2011? Well, Apple unseated IBM as the top brand of 2011, according to a new study by Davis Brand Capital, how about that?

There are reasons for this result. “The annual 2011 Davis Brand Capital 25 ranking evaluates companies’ abilities to manage and balance the five key intangible categories that comprise brand capital: brand value; competitive performance; innovation strength; company culture; and social impact,” the group said. So what makes Apple become the first in the list, of course, there are a plenty of reasons, and according to Davis, "(Apple's) rise in this year's rankings was driven largely by its competitive performance and added brand value". Why Apple has these two features? We just need to take a look at iPad 2, it’s the most popular Tablet in the market, and other Tablets like Kindle Fire even can’t compete with it, by the way, if you are an iPad 2 user, you should know how to sync ipad 2 to computer, that’s a very important trick to make the most of your iPad.

Technology world develops very fast, faster than any others, one thing could disappear in a short time, and one thing could be famous in just one night. The ranking in David Brand Capital changes all the time. According to Davis, one of the biggest movers on the list was Google, which hopped from No. 11 on the list in 2009 to fourth place this year. Meanwhile, Samsung and Wal-Mart both dropped, with Samsung going from no. 8 in 2010 to No. 23 this year, and Wal-Mart sliding to 24 in this year's list, compared to fifth place last year.

The last result shows that Apple is the most successful one, competitive performance and added brand value make it happen, David said, and it’s more than these. The consumers of Apple are different than the others, they are very faithful. According to Toni Sacconaghi, Apple build up a product platform the likes of a cable company, with many of its customers coming back again and again to re-purchase devices like they would a paid subscription.

So how does that work out for each product? The report suggests the following "lifetime value(s)" of each customer--by product--based on data about retention rates, replacement time and Apple's margins on each device type (among other data):

iPhone: $700-$900 (replaced every 2 years)
Mac: $600-$650 (replaced every 3 years)
iPad: $275-$300 (replaced every 3 years)

Here Toni Sacconaghi hasn’t mentioned the conditions of iPod, but we all know that iPod is the one that saved Apple ten years ago, so apparently, iPod series also has a crowed of faithful fans. If you own an iPod, you may need an ipod to itunes transfer free to backup your files in iPod.

Is Apple invincible? No one can guarantee that, but considering its performance in 2011, I bet they will do better in the next year.