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And South Africa's most Googled car brand is...

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Cape Town - Toyota might have been toppled as the world's top-selling automaker, but they emerged as the most searched automaker in the world in 2016 according to Quickco

Quickco,  the UK’s largest multi-franchise car parts distributor, collected data to find out which car brands that were Googled the most in 2016.

The team looked at 193 countries that they could collect data from (i.e no North Korea, Iran, Cuba etc.) to look for trends, patterns and possibly a few surprises.

Looking closer to home, Mercedes-Benz was the most searched car brand in South Africa. 

Take a look at the full map below:

 


The results

The single brand that topped the list in the highest number of countries was Toyota, in 74 countries. Second was BMW, with 51, and third was Hyundai with 17.

These three brands combined make up 73% of all top searches around the world, according to Quicko. That doesn’t necessarily mean more people searched for these brands; smaller areas such as Marshall Islands and sparsely populated countries such as Mongolia don’t add up to huge numbers of people (both were Toyota).

You’d think that in countries with car industries, those brands would be most popular but it isn’t necessarily the case. Only Germany (BMW), France (Renault), Sweden (Volvo) and Italy (Fiat) had a home-grown brand at the top of the list of searches – and in the case of Fiat and Volvo, they were the only countries that put those brands at the top.

Africa's popular brands

The most searched brands in Southern Africa is Mercedes and BMW. South Africa, Namibia and Botswana all chose Mercedes, while BMW was searched the most in Lesotho and Swaziland. 

Toyota was the most popular choice in Africa, with 28 countries picking the Japanese company. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault and Hyundai were also searched on the continent. 

One surprise was Niger, who's citizens Googled French hypercar brand Bugatti more than any other manufacturer. 

Below is a representation of which brands were the most searched in Africa:

Hyundai's sterling performance

Interestingly, Hyundai, which performs well around the world, was not the top search in its native South Korea – that crown went to BMW. And Japan, home to well searched Honda and Toyota (and Suzuki), also seems to prefer BMWs.

The USA, where mass production of motors was pioneered, now searched most for Toyota.

But Ironically, the all-American brand Chevrolet was the most searched brand in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.

Not a single nation had Ford as its most searched brand. This is quite surprising given the immense popularity of the marque all over the world, but that’s the nature of dividing the world into constituencies. 

Breakdown by continent: 

North America

Europe:

South America:

Asia and Australia: 

Read the full report here. 

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