Toyota Remains World's Most Valuable Car Brand, Study Finds

Just three automakers made it to the top 100 brands in market researcher Kantar’s latest 2020 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands study. Toyota, ranked 48th overall, still remains the world’s most valuable car brand despite losing approximately 3 percent of its value compared to 2019.

Mercedes-Benz is the second most valuable brand in the automotive industry according to the study, placing 56th overall, followed by BMW at 61st position, losing 9 and 12 percent respectively. Ford and Honda dropped off the top 100 list after losing 10 and 15 percent of their values compared to 2019.

“Since 2008, the car sector has declined in value and has never recovered,” Global BrandZ Strategy Director, Graham Staplehurst, told Automotive News. “It’s very different from other sectors. For example, the luxury sector took a hit but then came back.”

From all ten automotive brands included in the study, Tesla is the only one with a valuation increase of 22 percent to $11.35 billion. However, this wasn’t enough for the California-based EV automaker to enter Top 100 territory. Kantar’s specialists believe that companies with a clear focus on electric technologies have the highest chance of a faster recovery.

“Brands that are continuing to invest in more EVs will continue to grow in the future,” the research company’s global automotive practice lead, Guillaume Saint, commented to Automotive News. “Companies that are dropping value the most are the ones that are most shy about expressing their vision for the future in terms of mobility.”

In the automotive brand’s Top 10 list, Nissan registered the highest drop in value by 18 percent to $8.66 billion, followed by Honda, Audi, and BMW with 15-, 14, and 12-percent decreases.

Outside the automotive sector, the highest valued brand for 2020 is Amazon, which retains its position from 2019 after increasing its value by 32 percent to $415.8 billion. Apple came second, followed by Microsoft, which took the third spot from Google.