The World's Most Reputable Company

Toyota is the world’s most reputable company for the year 2008, a study by Reputation Institute, a New York based research firm concluded.

The Japanese company is currently the world’s largest auto maker, ahead of General Motors, the company it overtook since the last two years. Apart from the Toyota brand itself, it also owns other best selling vehicle brands such as Lexus, Scion, and Daihatsu in the form of compact cars, sport utility vehicles and trucks.

Other than the automotive business, Toyota also provides financial services such as financing, equipment leasing and related financial products.

On the second position was Google, which breaks into the top spot for the first time. The world’s largest search engine, which has won numerous business awards in the recent years, came as a little surprise, with the company’s reputation and value rising up almost unstoppable.

Sweden’s IKEA, Italy’s Ferrero and America’s Johnson&Johnson came third, fourth and fifth respectively.

More than 600 largest companies were researched to find those with the best global reputation. Toyota, which is headquartered in Tokyo, Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, was ranked 6th in the last two years - 2006 and 2007. In July 2008, Toyota was named as the world’s 5th largest company in the world, behind Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP.