Toyota Toppled as Most Valuable Car Brand

Toyota has long been the world’s largest automaker, but it might not be the most valuable. A new report from market research group Millward Brown suggests that BMW has overtaken Toyota as the automotive sector’s most valuable brand. The new ranking comes from a report called BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands.

To determine brand value, Millward Brand takes into account earnings from branded products, the value of the brand itself, and how much impact the brand has on a company’s earnings. The company also interviews over two million consumers in more than 30 countries to help determine their impressions of some 50,000 product brands.

The study says that BMW’s brand value rose ten percent year-over-year to $24.6 billion, while Toyota’s brand value sank ten percent to $21.8 billion. That’s something of a shake-up: Toyota was ranked as the most valuable brand from 2006 to 2009, and in 2011. BMW temporarily nabbed the top spot in 2010.

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