Toyota holds off BMW to remain most valuable car brand; Tesla rises to No. 8
Toyota defended its title as the world’s most valuable car brand in a fresh ranking, holding off BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Tesla, meantime, made the largest improvement, rising two catches sight of to No. Eight because of a thirty two percent increase in its brand value.
Toyota’s brand value decreased three percent to $28.7 billion as enlargened sales were offset by raunchy currency challenges as well as enhanced investment and rising labor costs, according to the BrandZ Top one hundred Most Valuable Global Brands examine released by market researcher Kantar Millward Brown.
“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 telling, ‘What`s all the fuss about, my car is fine.` Toyota has delivered fine value for years.”
Toyota has been No. One in ten of the twelve years the probe has been conducted.
Telsa passes Porsche, Land Rover
Tesla, which enhanced its brand value thirty two percent to $Five.9 billion, overtook Land Rover and Porsche to leap to No. Eight in this year’s ranking from No. Ten last year among automotive brands.
«The Tesla story is interesting because it is not just the cars it offers now, it is the promise for the future,” Walshe said. «There is a perception that it offers a fantastic brand practice, even among non-owners. The only other brands that I`ve seen have this kind of appeal before they got into mass market were Apple and Facebook.”
Land Rover slipped to a spot to No. Nine despite enlargening its brand value seventeen percent to $Five.Five billion. “Land Rover is doing amazingly well in all its main markets because of the growing appetite for SUVs. They have taken advantage of that,” Walshe said.
BMW remained in 2nd place despite its brand value decreasing eight percent to $24.6 billion. The decrease was partially due to rising investment costs for fresh technologies and a sales slowdown in the U.S. Despite the slight dip, the German automaker continued to win over customers in two key areas.
“BMW is indeed making money from its position as a leader in the luxury niche. It`s doing so because of different reasons. One is its consistency in delivering excellent driveability and another is with the its innovation,” Walshe said. “As the telling goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and when you come to dine on BMW it`s a fabulous taste.”
Mercedes’ value enlargened by four percent to $23.Five billion, which helped it retain the No. Three spot. The company’s record unit sales, revenue and net profit in two thousand sixteen played a big role in boosting its brand value as did a restructuring of its company-owned dealer network.
The total value of the Top ten car brands dipped to $139.Two billion from $139.9 billion in 2016. A reason for that is automakers are investing billions in to develop solutions to the many challenges they face including fresh forms of ownership and greater connectivity of their vehicles.
“Automotive brands in the top ten are worth six percent less than they were when we embarked our explore twelve years ago, but those brands have investment one hundred to two hundred percent more into technology,” Walshe said. “The brands that have done best are those that have adapted to their consumers.”
He says the industry is at a crossroads. “If you speak to the automakers, they are permanently looking for way to create collaborations to adapt to this fresh world. This is why BMW and Nissan are working with Microsoft on a connected vehicle platform and Ford and BMW are working with Amazon on cloud-based voice services.”
When it comes to the ranking of all brands, Google retained the No. One spot. Google’s brand value rose seven percent to $245.6 billion. (Download a PDF of the two thousand seventeen BrandZ Top one hundred Most Valuable Brands, below.)
Apple held on to the No. Two spot because of a three percent rise in brand value to $234.7 billion. Microsoft rounded out the global top three with an eighteen percent rise in brand value to $143.Two billion.