Toyota world's most valuable car brand

Toyota has the world's most valuable nameplate, its 'brand' is worth $US29.6 billion according to the annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study.

Conducted by New York-based market research company Millward Brown, the results show that Toyota's brand value has increased by 21 per cent in the last 12 months, ahead of BMW in second and Mercedes-Benz in third, worth a reported $US25.7 billion (up seven per cent) and $US21.5 billion (up 20 per cent) respectively.

Toyota's luxury brand Lexus didn't make the cut.

Fourth place in the global brand rankings – based on data from Bloomberg and other sources including over two million interviews with consumers – in the automotive sphere went to Honda, its brand valued at $US14.1 billion, a rise of 14 per cent.

However the most notable entrant into the top five was Ford, whose brand soared by a whopping 56 per cent to snare the title of fifth most valuable car brand in the world. The Blue Oval brand is worth an estimated $11.8 billion, overtaking Nissan and Volkswagen to leap-frog into the top five.

Global BrandZ director at Millward Brown, Peter Walshe, told Automotive News Europe that Toyota's green/hybrid image helps its brand equity immensely, ensuring it maintained the position of top car brand in seven of the nine years the study has been conducted.

But Ford was the big improver.

With a growing portfolio of consistent global products under the 'One Ford' strategy, the brand "comes easily to consumers' minds," said Walshe. "This is an area where Ford has really done well."

The second half of the top 10 most valuable automotive brands was filled by Nissan, then Volkswagen, Audi, Chevrolet, followed by Hyundai in 10th position.

While car brands are highly recognisable to a wide cross-section of society on a global scale, they cannot match tech companies for global recognition.

Toyota may be the world's most valuable car brand according to Millward Brown but factor in all brands to the top 100 and it only comes in at 26th spot.

The world's most valuable global brand is Google, which relegated Apple to the number two spot in 2014.

According to BrandZ, Google's brand value shot up 40 per cent to $US158.8 billion, and is worth more than $100 billion more than Toyota. Meanwhile Apple's brand equity dropped by 20 per cent to $147.9 billion to take second place overall, following a slow year for new product launches.

World's most valuable car brands (top 100 position)
1.    Toyota (26)
2.    BMW (32)
3.    Mercedes (42)
4.    Honda (70)
5.    Ford (84)
6.    Nissan (90)
7.    Volkswagen
8.    Audi
9.    Chevrolet
10.  Hyundai