Toyota retains crown for most valuable automotive brand for fourth consecutive year

Toyota’s brand value grew by 16% to continue leading the automotive sector in the Best Global Brands 2015 report published by Interbrand while continuing to maintain its Top 10 position from last year. Toyota’s brand is now valued at US$ 49,048 million (Rs 309,836 crore). It is the fourth consecutive year for Toyota to be ranked in the Top 10 and the record high sixth spot versus eighth in 2014.

The highlights of this year’s ranking include technology and automotive brands dominating the list, holding a combined 28 positions out of 100; as well as the recognition towards integrated solutions brands offer for individual needs of the customer.

“The Best Global Brands report examines what it takes for brands to succeed in today’s hyper-fragmented world. As people demand immediate, personalized and tailored experiences, business and brands need to move at the speed of life,” says Jez Frampton, Interbrand’s Global CEO. “Many of the brands in this year’s Top 100 are so intuitively aligned with people’s priorities, that they are able to seamlessly integrate into their everyday lives.”

‘Moving at the speed of life’ – the title of this year’s report – is a native philosophy for Toyota, which is committed to the creation of ever better mobility solutions. This is an outward, consumer-centred approach to transportation, shaped by the needs of customers.

Toyota says that no single technology can meet such a diversity of requirements. For this reason, the carmaker says it aims to provide a range of mobility solutions that can respond to the different necessities that customers will have at different times. This is part of the mobility roadmap it has been developing for over a decade.

According to Toyota, electric vehicles will best serve the needs of urban mobility. It is currently trialling this in Grenoble with innovative products like the i-ROAD and the COMS in a car sharing experiment. For everyday use, hybrid – the technology the Japanese carmaker spearheaded in 1997 with the launch of the Prius – and plug-in hybrids will remain the powertrain of choice for the majority of our customers. Fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen will cater for the remaining needs of long-distance mobility in a society ever more concerned about pollution. To make this happen, the company has opened over 5,680 fuel cell patents for the royalty-free use this year, including those used for the Toyota Mirai, the world’s first mass produced fuel cell sedan which is entering sales in Europe this month.

Find out how Automotive and tech firms dominated the 2015 global brand rankings