Toyota Remains World’s Most Valuable Car Brand
Toyota has successfully defended its title as the world’s most valuable car brand in the 2017 BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking, a comprehensive report that analyzes tens of thousands of brands around the world. The study was released by market researcher Kantar Millward Brown.
While technology giants like Google and Amazon topped the overall list, it was Toyota that once again came out in the lead among auto manufacturers. The Japanese brand was ranked 30th overall, ahead of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. In the 12 years the study has been conducted, Toyota has been ranked first all but twice.
“Toyota is seen as a reliable, quality value brand,” Peter Walshe, Global BrandZ director at Kantar Millward Brown, told Automotive News Europe. “Even when it was going through its recall problems, the users were saying, ‘What’s all the fuss about, my car is fine.’ Toyota has delivered great value for years.”
Interestingly, the combined value of the top 10 automotive brands went down overall compared to 2016, while non-automotive brands surged. According to Walshe, that’s at least in part because they are investing billions to meet the demands for new ownership experiences and enhanced connectivity. Toyota created the Toyota Research Institute; Nissan is working with Microsoft to develop a connected vehicle platform; and Ford is working with Amazon to build cloud-based voice services.
“Automotive brands in the top 10 are worth 6 percent less than they were when we started our study 12 years ago, but those brands have investment 100 to 200 percent more into technology,” Walshe said. “The brands that have done best are those that have adapted to their consumers.”
Source: BrandZ Global 2017 Report (.pdf)
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