US search engine Google Inc has replaced US electronics giant Apple Inc as the company with the highest brand power in Taiwan, according to a survey by Japanese consulting firm Nikkei BP Consulting Inc.
The “Brand Asia 2013” ranking, released on Friday, showed that Google had a total brand power score of 74.1, followed by Apple with 70, Yahoo Inc with 68.5, Sony Corp with 68.2 and Taiwanese PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) with 66.5.
In sixth to 10th places were McDonald’s Corp with 64.8, 3M Co with 64, Taiwan-based online human resource agency 104 Job Bank with 63.7, Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) with 63.7 and Microsoft Corp with 63.5.
Asustek climbed to fifth place from seventh last year, while HTC fell to eighth from third in last year’s ranking. The annual brand evaluation project only discloses the top 10 brands in each country surveyed.
The survey conducted questionnaires among customers from October last year to January in 11 nations — China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Consumer evaluations were conducted of 100 brands, mainly in 10 categories, such as fast-moving consumer goods, foodstuffs, IT/home electronics, automobiles, retail, finance, Internet-related, media, restaurants and sporting goods.
About 15,000 respondents in the 11 nations were asked to answer questions in terms of favorable impressions, degrees of helpfulness, sense of quality and other aspects of the brands.
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