Compare the Market Australia’s global survey of the most searched cars online has revealed that Toyota remains in the lead for the third year in a row, and the most searched brand in Australia.
Using Google Trends data, the Compare the Market research has tracked Toyota’s win as the favoured brand in almost twice as many countries as the second-place winner, BMW.
Toyota was the top search term in 69 out of 155 countries for 2022. The analysis reveals that it was the most popular search of any car brand in 69 of the 155 countries included in the research, accounting for around 44.5% of total searches.
That’s up from 31% of searches in 2021.
It’s perhaps not surprising, given it was named the most reliable car brand of 2022 as well as the most trusted automotive brand in Australia, where it far surpassed searches for competitors such as Mazda and Ford.
As for the country that loves Toyota the most online – that’s the United States. In 2022, the nation had an average monthly search volume of 2,740,000. Yet, it wasn’t the nation’s favourite brand according to Compare the Market.
Trailing behind in second and third place globally are BMW (most searched in 36 countries), and Mercedes (10 countries). Alongside Toyota, the three brands have consistently held the podium for each of the five years Compare the Market has run this analysis. Of those, 2019 was the only year Toyota lost the throne, with BMW securing 118 countries to its name.
After gaining traction in 2021 and closing the gap between it and BMW by almost 70%, Mercedes-Benz lost more than half of the countries it held last year over the course of 2022.
Other names that saw big losses were the likes of Tesla, Renault, Rolls Royce and Mazda – all of which were absent as a top brand in any nation this year, unlike 2021, where they were the favourite in at least one country.
On the other side of the track, Jeep had success for the first time in the history of the report. It was the most searched car brand in Bhutan, followed by GM and Tesla.
Nissan also saw considerable improvement in its ranking. The manufacturer increased from 10th place in 2021 to 6th place in 2022, which was the largest advance other than Jeep’s debut in the top 10.
Compare the Market’s General Insurance GM Adrian Taylor says that the results of the study could be indicative of what people are driving on the roads.
“Typically, search results give an indication of what people are interested in and may not always be aligned to what people are driving,” Taylor says.
“However, in the case of the Australian figures, our own insurance sales data aligns with the search data compiled for this analysis, where Toyota is the top brand in both cases. It shows a clear parallel between what people are searching, and what people are actually driving.
“Even more specifically, when it comes to Australian car insurance policies, the Toyota Corolla is the most common car that people compare and buy insurance for through Compare the Market,” he says.
