Toyota is top car brand

Toyota has beaten BMW to become the number one car brand in the BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2011, as compiled by MillwardBrown.

That was achieved despite the extensive and high profile recalls for many of the company’s vehicles over the past year. However, the introduction of extended warranties, as well as independent experts finding that driver mistakes were responsible in the majority of incidents, clearly helped to minimise any damage. Toyota also topped the rankings for offering the best value, a measure of desirability versus price.

Toyota: Most valuable car brand 2011

Runner-up BMW was cited as being the most recommended automotive brand, while third-place Mercedes-Benz is the most trusted.

Eighth-place Ford was the only one of the ‘big three’ American manufacturers to make the top ten, which was due in part to it rejecting government bail-out money, unlike GM and Chrysler. Indeed, Ford made its highest profits for ten years, while launching attractive models that people actually want to buy and supporting them by innovative marketing approaches.

Heading the overall Top 100 listing was Apple, followed by Google and IBM.

BrandZ™ Top 10 Most Valuable Global Car Brands 2011
Ranking: Cars	Brand	Brand Value (US$ M)	Change	Ranking: Overall Top 100
1	Toyota	24,198	11%	27
2	BMW	22,425	3%	30
3	Mercedes-Benz	15,344	12%	50
4	Honda	14,182	-1%	56
5	Porsche	12,413	3%	66
6	Nissan	10,072	17%	88
7	Volkswagen	7,408	6%	N/A
8	Ford	7,394	5%	N/A
9	Audi	3,808	5%	N/A
10	Lexus	3,648	N/A	N/A