Toyota Named Most Valuable Car Brand For Sixth Year In A Row

Market researcher Kantar Millward Brown has published the annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study and it's a déjà vu kind of story. For the sixth consecutive year, Toyota has earned the title for the most valuable brand among automakers, with a brand value of $29.987 billion – representing a solid increase of five percent compared to the year before.

Toyota has been enjoying a strong demand for its SUVs in the United States and Europe, which corroborated with the company's consistency, has allowed the Japanese marque to keep its crown. This is the explanation given by Peter Walshe, Global BrandZ director at Kantar Millward Brown, while speaking with Automotive News Europe and detailing why Toyota came out on top once again.

It's safe to say Toyota has been dominating the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands if we only take into account car manufacturers. So far it has been named the most valuable brand among automakers for 11 times, out of a total of 13. It had to settle for second place only in 2010 and 2012.

In the latest study, Mercedes enjoyed a significant boost of 9 percent, increasing its value to 25.684 billion to claim second place. The growth has allowed the Daimler-owned company to overtake BMW, which finished third with a brand value of 25.624 billion or four percent more than the year before. Walshe explained Mercedes managed to grab BMW's second place primarily thanks to its growth in markets such as China, Brazil, and Russia, while the popularity of the E-Class was also a contributing factor.

The top 10 for automakers also includes Ford (4), Honda (5), Nissan (6), Audi (7), Tesla (8), Maruti Suzuki (9), and Volkswagen (10). The latter is back in the top 10 after a two-year absence caused by the nasty Dieselgate fiasco.

Overall, Google is still number one, with an impressive brand value of $302.063 billion or 23 percent more than in 2017. Apple is in second place with $300.595 billion (+28 percent), and Amazon is third with $207.594 (+49 percent). Top 10 is completed by Microsoft (4), Tencent (5), Facebook (6), Visa (7), McDonald's (8), Alibaba Group (9), and AT&T (10).

If you're wondering how each company is ranked, here's the official explanation:

"In order to identify the dollar amount a brand contributed to the overall value of a corporation, BrandZ combines measures of brand equity based on interviews with over three million consumers about thousands of brands, with rigorous analysis of the financial and business performance of each company (using data from Bloomberg and Kantar Worldpanel)."