Toyota Still Most Valuable Car Brand

Toyota has kept its title of most valuable brand in a recent annual survey and report – the Kanter Millward Brown Top 100 Most Valuable Brands. It is the 12th time in fourteen years that Toyota has come out on top of all the car brands listed. However in the last few years, automotive marques have been overtaken by other brands in the valuation list.

In 2017 there were six car manufacturers and last year there were five. This year Ford and Honda dropped out of the Top 100 leaving Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and BMW as the three most valuable car brands. The reason that Toyota was cited as the most valuable was because it has a strong reputation where ever it does business and in each geographical market place it holds the same position in each market – it doesn’t try to be a luxury car in one market and an everyday vehicle in another. It simply delivers on its core competencies.

Volkswagen gained in value and Porsche took the 10th car brand spot by ousting Maruti-Suzuki from India. Overall most car brands are going backwards because, as the report suggests, they are single focused in that they make one type of product. The biggest brands have a wider spread of products and services and are the typical consumer technology brands like Apple, Amazon and Google. An analyst suggested that consumers want to buy products from an eco-system rather than a single product company.

That is why Motoring Weekly suggested a while back that car manufacturers would evolve into data and services as their core business with their cars and trucks literally becoming a vehicle to make money off the data, and selling other products through an affiliate program.

The top ten most valuable car companies are:

1. Toyota
2. Mercedes-Benz
3. BMW
4. Honda
5. Ford
6. Nissan
7. Tesla
8. Audi
9. Volkswagen
10. Porsche

If you combine the three VW brands into the group, it would put them as the 4th most valuable grouping. It says something that German brands dominate the top ten, their reputation is teflon coated after several years of emissions scandals!