Toyota was the most searched car brand in 2021

Tuesday, 11 January 2022

The Toyota GR Yaris is the 2021 Stuff Top Car for fun.

Following 2020, Toyota has once again taken the crown for the most searched for car brand across the world.

The ranking came from Compare the Market, which used Google Trends data to find the most-searched car company in countries around the world.

Weirdly, Google Trends doesn’t recognise Tesla as a “vehicle brand” but it was included in the ranking anyway.

Ford’s domination of North America continues while Toyota is slowly taking over the rest of the world.

Some countries had limited or no data, and were omitted from the list as a result.

* Toyota the most searched car brand of 2020

* Top automotive tech at CES 2021

* BMW the most searched automotive brand in 2019

Toyota topped searches in 47 of the 154 countries analysed, represented in around 31 per cent of all searches. Interestingly, this is down from the 34.8 per cent result of 2020.

One possible reason for this drop is that other car brands have eaten into Toyota’s lead. Audi and Hyundai both saw increases in searches compared to last year, while Rolls-Royce and Mazda both topped countries for the first time since the survey began in 2018.

However, Toyota’s continued efforts at introducing interesting new cars like the Top Cars-winning GR Yaris and the forthcoming all-electric bZ4X, as well as restarting production of spare parts for its Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno classics, has kept it in the lead.

While Toyota is the most searched for overall, second-place BMW still holds the record for the most searched for brand in the most countries, topping the list in 118 countries overall back in 2019.

For 2021, BMW ranked highest in 29 countries, while Mercedes-Benz took third with 23 countries.

Toyota, BMW and Mercedes have been the top three brands, in that order, since the first study in 2018.

Last year also marked the first time Tesla was included, topping searches in Hong Kong, Israel, Macao, Singapore and China.

The American EV maker also appeared the second or third most searched for Austria, the Bahamas, Botswana, Congo Kinshasa, Croatia, Finland, Guinea, Iceland, Kuwait, Madagascar, Malta, Norway, Palestine, Rwanda, South Africa, South Korea, Syria, the United States and Yemen.

Not bad for a company Google doesn’t think is a vehicle brand!

Suzuki, which hasn’t placed as a top search in any country since 2018, reappeared in 2021 as the most searched for brand in Pakistan.

Some other big brands lost ground last year, like Ford, Volvo, Nissan and Peugeot, with each brand’s ranking dropping by at least three places.

In addition, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Alfa Romeo are all names that dropped out of the race entirely and didn’t make the list for top searched vehicle brand in any country in 2021.