About the ranking
Questions about the Swiss Lions 100
Answers to the questions we are asked most often about the Swiss Lions 100. The full rules are on the method page, and every figure is shown with its source on the brand's page.
Questions
What the ranking is
What is the Swiss Lions 100?
Is this an official Swiss ranking?
How is it different from other brand rankings?
Why brands rather than companies? Why are Nespresso and Nestlé listed separately?
Who is in, and who is not
What does a brand need to be in the 100?
Why is a brand I expected not in the 100?
Why are Logitech, On and foreign-owned brands such as TAG Heuer counted as Swiss?
Why is Glencore ranked on gross profit, and why are Vitol and Trafigura not ranked?
How are private companies that publish no revenue scored?
How the scores work
What are the four measures, and which counts most?
Why Wikipedia and Google Trends for visibility, and not social media?
What the ranking is
What is the Swiss Lions 100?
An annual ranking of the leading global brands from Switzerland, scored only on published data. Four measures combine into one score. They cover how big a brand is in the world, how well known it is, how much of its value is created in Switzerland and what it gives back through climate targets and philanthropy.
The 2026 edition is the first. Alongside the 100, each of thirteen categories has its own ranking.
Is this an official Swiss ranking?
No. The Swiss Lions 100 is an independent project, with no backing from government, trade bodies or Swissness labels and no company behind it. It uses public data about Swiss brands and does not speak for Switzerland or for the brands it ranks.
How is it different from other brand rankings?
Most brand rankings estimate what a brand is worth. Interbrand's Best Global Brands, Brand Finance's Global 500 and Switzerland 50, and Kantar BrandZ each put a monetary value on a brand using the firm's own valuation model, built on forecast earnings, an estimate of how much of them the brand drives and a proprietary measure of brand strength. The results are useful, but most of the inputs are not published and the values cannot be reproduced outside the firm.
Company rankings such as the Handelszeitung Top 500 and the Fortune Global 500 rank by revenue alone. That shows how big a company is, but nothing about how Swiss it is, how well known it is or what it gives back.
The Swiss Lions 100 scores each brand on four measures using only public figures. The rules are on the method page, every figure is shown with its source on the brand's page, and anyone can recalculate a score. As far as we know, it is the only ranking that asks where a brand's value is created.
Why brands rather than companies? Why are Nespresso and Nestlé listed separately?
Brands are ranked at the level where they are run and reported. A company trading under its own name counts once. Where a group owns several global brands that are run and known in their own right, each qualifying brand is ranked on its own and its revenue is not counted again in the group.
Nespresso reports its own revenue and is run as its own business, so it is ranked on its own and Nestlé's figure excludes it. The same rule applies to the watch brands of Swatch Group and Richemont, which are ranked as brands rather than as groups.
Who is in, and who is not
What does a brand need to be in the 100?
A Swiss home or a Swiss-made range, a global footprint and revenue of at least CHF 100 million. A Swiss home means global headquarters and brand management in Switzerland, whoever owns the company. A Swiss-made range means most of the products legally qualify as Swiss made.
The category rankings use the same tests with no minimum revenue, so a brand can appear in its category ranking without being in the 100. The full rules are on the method page.
Why is a brand I expected not in the 100?
Usually for one of four reasons. Its revenue is below CHF 100 million. It has no global footprint, since a brand sold mainly in Switzerland is not ranked however large it is. It publishes no revenue and no credible estimate exists, in which case it is listed as not yet ranked rather than guessed. Or it was assessed and placed outside its category's published list.
The not yet ranked list on the 100 page gives the reason for each brand. If you think a brand has been missed, tell us.
Why are Logitech, On and foreign-owned brands such as TAG Heuer counted as Swiss?
Because the test is a Swiss home or a Swiss-made range. Logitech and On were founded in Switzerland and are run from here, although their products are made abroad. Their Swiss value score is low, because that measure asks where the value is created, and their brand pages say so.
TAG Heuer and Hublot belong to LVMH and are made in Switzerland. A brand that is not Swiss-controlled, meaning its parent is incorporated abroad or a company or fund based abroad holds more than a third of the votes, scores ten points lower on Swiss value. Production, jobs and brand management stay in Switzerland, so the deduction lowers the score without excluding the brand.
Why is Glencore ranked on gross profit, and why are Vitol and Trafigura not ranked?
Commodity traders' revenue mostly reflects the price of the commodities passing through their books, so it says little about the size of the business. They are scored on gross profit instead. Glencore publishes its gross profit and is ranked.
Vitol does not publish gross profit. Trafigura is run from Singapore, so it does not meet the Swiss home test. Mercuria was assessed on its last published gross profit and placed outside the services category list.
How are private companies that publish no revenue scored?
Many private companies, including most watchmakers, publish no revenue. We then use a named estimate, mainly from Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult for watch brands, or a lower bound the company gives itself, such as "more than CHF 400 million". Estimates are marked e in every table and labelled on the brand's page.
Where there is neither a published figure nor a credible estimate, the brand is listed as not yet ranked. Several well-known private brands are listed for that reason.
How the scores work
What are the four measures, and which counts most?
Global scale is the latest annual revenue in Swiss francs, on a logarithmic scale, with operating income used for banks and gross profit for commodity traders. Global visibility is worldwide Wikipedia readership and Google Trends search interest, each measured against a reference brand. Swiss value reflects where the range is made or, for a service business, where it was founded, adjusted for foreign control. Impact covers validated climate targets, B Corp certification and charitable foundations.
Global scale counts most, followed by Swiss value. Visibility and impact carry smaller weights. Full weightings are available to researchers and journalists on request, and the scoring rules for each measure are on the method page.
Why Wikipedia and Google Trends for visibility, and not social media?
Because they are public, worldwide, measured the same way for every brand and cannot be bought. Follower counts can be bought, vary by platform and say more about a brand's marketing budget than about how many people know it. Wikipedia page views across all language editions and Google search interest are the closest public measures of how widely a brand is known.
We plan to add how often brands appear when AI assistants answer questions about their category.
Independence
Who pays for the ranking, and can a company pay to be in it?
No company can pay to be ranked, to move up or to be left out. Every position follows from published data and the published method, and there is nothing to enter.
Partners may support the project financially. They have no say over the method, the data or the results, and any partnership with a ranked brand is disclosed on that brand's page. At present the project is funded by its editor.
Who checks the scores, and does the editor have links to ranked brands?
The editor compiles the data and calculates the scores under the published method. The Swiss Lions Advisory Board, whose members are independent of the companies ranked, reviews any change to the method and checks the draft results before each edition is published.
The editor works in brand building in Lausanne, and some brands in the ranking have been clients of his employer. Board members and the editor do not review the scores of organisations they work with or for, and declare such links to the board. The method is public so that anyone can check any score.
Using the ranking
My figure is wrong. How do I correct it?
Use the contact form and say which figure, which period and where the correct figure is published. Corrections are checked against the source and made under the same rules as every other figure, and the brand's page then shows the new source. Where a company publishes a figure for the first time, it replaces an estimate.
Companies cannot approve or veto their entry before publication.
Can I use the data and charts, and how should I cite them?
Journalists and researchers may quote the ranking and reuse the charts from the data stories with the credit "the Swiss Lions 100, 2026 edition" and a link to swisslions.com. Brand-level figures should cite the source shown on the brand's page, since the figure is the company's own.
Ranked brands may cite their position with the same credit, and a licensed badge for company communications is available on request. The full data set is not available for download. Requests for research data go through the contact form, and logos and key facts are in the press kit.