And the most valuable car brand in the world is… Toyota. The world's biggest carmaker by volume has overtaken BMW in an annual brand-value survey to rank 23rd among all brands, just ahead BMW at 24th.
According to market research company Millward Brown, Toyota's brand value rose 12 percent to $24.5 billion (R235 billion) thanks to sales of hybrid cars, while BMW lost two percent from 2012, coming in at $24 billion (R230 billion) although the researchers didn't say how they arrived at those figures.
The survey showed double-digit gains for Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Hyundai thanks to increased sales in the world's two biggest markets, the United States and China.
BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT? AUDI
Mercedes-Benz slotted in at 43rd overall, third among the car brands, with a 11 percent increase to $18 billion (R172 billion), with Honda the next automaker at 71st, thanks to a brand value of $12.5 billion (R120 billion). The only other car companies in Millward Brown's top 100 brands were Nissan, 86th at $10.2 billion (R98 billion) and Volkswagen, 100th at $8.8 billion (R84 billion).
Ford, Audi, Hyundai and Lexus made up the rest of the top 10 car brands, although none of them made it into the top 100 overall. Audi, however, showed the biggest year-on-year improvement of any automotive brand, soaring 18 percent to $5.5 billion (R53 billion).
And the top three brands overall?
Not surprisingly in the digital age, they were all technology companies, with Apple heading the survey at a brand value of $185.1 billion (R1773 billion) followed by Google on $113.7 (R1119 billion) and IBM on $112.5 (R1078 billion).