Top Japanese brands globally: Toyota tops Japanese brands

WARC, 14 February 2014

TOKYO: Automotive and electronics brands dominate the top ten Japanese global brands while telecoms and financial services lead the field among the country's domestic brands, according to Interbrand.

Two new reports from the brand consultancy – Japan's Best Global Brands 2014 and Japan's Best Domestic Brands 2014 – ranked the value of Japanese brands with global operations and those poised for global expansion.

Automakers had seen sharp rises in their brand value. Toyota, the number one Japanese global brand, rose 17% to $35.3bn, while Nissan in fifth was up 25% to $6.2bn. Honda, in second spot, and Lexus, in eighth, recorded more modest increases of 7% each to $18.5bn and $2.7bn respectively.

The greatest increases for auto brands, or indeed any brand, were seen further down the rankings of the top 30 global brands. The value of Subaru, in 16th, had jumped 70% to $1.2bn, and that of Mazda, in 21st, was up 43% to $891m.

Electronics firms maintained a significant presence in the top ten global brands but most of the four brands present had seen their value fall. Only Panasonic, in seventh place, recorded a modest increase of 1% to $5.8bn.

Canon, in third place, and Sony, fourth, saw their values drop by -9% and -8% respectively to $11bn and $8.4bn, while Nintendo, in 6th, was down -14% to $6.1bn.

Toshiba, the engineering to electronics group, was in ninth place and optical business Nikon in tenth.

Among the best domestic brands, telecoms business NTT Docomo was ranked first, although its value had slipped -2% to $10.6bn. Rival Softbank had leapt 25% to $6.3m and was in third place. The third telecoms business in the top ten was au, in sixth, worth $4bn.

MUFG was the top financial services business, in second place with a value of $6.5bn. SMFG and Mizuho, in fifth and seventh spots respectively were the other two finance businesses in the top ten.

Retailer Uniqlo, in fourth, was valued at $4.1bn and Interbrand noted that its 14% increase meant it was now worth more than Gap, the US fashion chain. Ecommerce giant Rakuten was in eighth was up 20% in value to $2.1bn and climbed two spots to eighth place.

Alcohol brand Kirin, in ninth, and FMCG group Kao, tenth, rounded out the top ten domestic brands.

Data sourced from Interbrand; additional content by Warc staff

For more on theory and case studies on: http://expertresearchers.blogspot.com