Ascendance and decline: the brand power of Sony vs. Samsung

I saw a report a few days ago that Samsung had finally broken into the top ten in Interbrand's annual "Best Global Brands" survey.  The Interbrand website includes a data visualization tool that allows comparison of any two of the brands they studied.  The graphic published here (click to see a larger version) is a screen capture of the results when one compares Sony with Samsung.  It clearly depicts the decline of Sony and the ascendance of Samsung over the period from 2001-2012.

My experience on the Interbrand website prompted me to do a comparison using Google Trends.  The second graphic (again, click to see a full sized version) shows worldwide web search activitity for Sony, Samsung and Apple.  This graphic illustrates not only the relative decline of Sony versus Samsung, but also the apparent sweeping impact of smartphones and tablets, starting with Apple's iPhone, launched in 2007.