Tesla rising fast, but Toyota still most valuable auto brand: report

Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla lead the 15 auto brands that made Interbrand’s latest Top 100 Global Brand Rankings

Tesla has almost tripled its brand value in the last 12 months, according to the 2021 Best Global Brands rankings released today by Interbrand. But even that astonishing growth wasn’t enough to dethrone Toyota as the world’s most highly valued automotive brand for the 18th year in a row.

Toyota came in seventh overall for the fifth consecutive year, trailing Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Coca-Cola in the 2021 rankings by the marketing and management consultancy.

The world’s biggest carmaker managed to close the gap to sixth-placed Coca-Cola slightly, increasing its value by five per cent to $54.1bn while Coca-Cola grew one per cent to $57.49bn.

Interbrand’s methodology is not based on sales volumes, revenue or share value. Instead, three key pieces of analysis form the valuation’s basis:

The financial performance of the branded products or services
The role the brand plays in purchase decisions
The brand’s competitive strength and its ability to create loyalty and, therefore, sustainable demand and profit into the future

Apple topped the rankings for the ninth consecutive year and increased its value 26 per cent year-on-year to $408.25bn. That puts it comfortably ahead of an also fast-growing Amazon (up 24 per cent to $249.25bn).

Third-placed Microsoft added 27 per cent to its value, now $210.19bn, while Google (up 19%) and Samsung (up 20%) rounded out the top five.

Mercedes-Benz again played second fiddle to Toyota in automotive terms, securing eighth place overall, right behind Toyota and ahead of McDonald’s, Disney and Nike. BMW came in 12th ahead of Louis Vuitton and Tesla in 14th.

Honda was the next best automotive brand, down five places to 25 in 2021, followed by Hyundai (35), Audi (46), Volkswagen (47), Ford (52), Porsche (58), Nissan (59), Ferrari (76), Kia (86), Mini (96) and Land Rover (98).

But no brand in this year’s top 100 – automotive or otherwise – grew as fast as Tesla, which added a staggering 184 per cent to its 2020 value of $12.78bn to be worth $36.27bn. In 2019 Tesla was outside the top 100.

Tesla’s 26-place jump in 2021 is also the biggest of any brand this year. Only CRM tech company Salesforce.com (up 20 places to 38) and online payments system Paypal (up 18 places to 42) came close to matching Tesla’s meteoric ascent.

Tesla’s rise over the last two years correlates with the sales success of its two latest mass-market vehicles, the Model 3 fastback launched in 2017 and Model Y small SUV launched in 2020.

Since 2017, Tesla’s production volumes have quintupled from just over 101,000 that year to more than 527,000 in 2020.

Tesla’s 2021 production tally stood at 624,582 at the end of Q3 and is expected to exceed 850,000 by year’s end.

The top 100 brands listed in Interbrand’s 2021 Best Global Brands are valued at a staggering $2,667 billion, up 15 per cent on last year’s top 100.

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