Toyota and Lexus among the world’s 10 most valuable car brands

What is the value of the Toyota and Lexus brands? Since 2006, Millward Brown, a global research agency specializing in advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research with 78 offices in 54 countries, has joined forces with BrandZ, a brand equity database that utilizes data from over 650,000 consumers and professionals across 31 countries to compare over 23,000 brands and create an annual list of the top 100 global brands. In the cars brand category, Toyota was the highest-ranked automotive brand in the world between 2006 and 2009. In the aftermath of the now-infamous recalls, Toyota fell to #2 in the car brands rank for 2010, behind BMW.

For the 2011 BrandZ Top 100 annual ranking of the world’s most valuable brands, we are pleased to note that Toyota has bounced back to the top of the car brand rankings, with an 11% jump in brand value to $24.2 billion. As Peter Walshe, Millward Brown global brand director told Automotive News Europe, “Toyota’s recall has not dented consumers’ confidence in the carmaker. It was a highly trusted brand before the recall and the company was always going to bounce back if it acted responsibly, which it did. It shows the resilience of the brand.”

In another noteworthy bit of news, Toyota’s Lexus brand breaks into the cars top 10 for the first time, with a brand value of $3.7 billion. Given Lexus’ fringe, almost niche presence in the European and Chinese markets compared to the German luxury behemoths and its relative newcomer status in the Japanese domestic market, this is quite an achievement. Here, then, is the 2011 BrandZ Cars Top 10, with values in billions of U.S. dollars:

1. Toyota $24.2
2. BMW $22.4
3. Mercedes $15.3
4. Honda $14.2
5. Porsche $12.4
6. Nissan $10.1
7. VW $7.4
8. Ford $7.4
9. Audi $3.8
10. Lexus $3.7

Toyota’s position at the top of the carmaker heap, however, is only good enough for 27th place in the overall BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands listing. In fact, only six of the top 10 car brands appear on the overall Top 100 list (the lowest being Nissan at #88 in the overall list). On that list, the big news is Google’s fall from the top to #2 at the hands of Apple, mostly on the strength of the latter’s iPad. Here, then, are the 10 Most Valuable Global Brands for 2011, again with values in billions of U.S. dollars:

1. Apple $153.2
2. Google $111.4
3. IBM $100.8
4. McDonald’s $81
5. Microsoft $78.2
6. Coca-Cola $73.8
7. AT&T $69.9
8. Marlboro $67.5
9. China Mobile $57.3
10. General Electric $50.3