Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been named Brand of the Year in the Harris Interactive poll for the second straight year. The iPhone maker outperformed tech giants like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) to bag three titles in computer, tablet and mobile phones.
Parameters of the study
Market Research firm Harris Interactive’s EquiTrend study surveyed more than 38,000 U.S. consumers on a wide range of products and services. Consumers picked Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the top performer in the computer, tablet and mobile phone segment.
“Americans continue to give Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) brands strong ratings,” said Manny Flores, a Harris Interactive senior vice president.
“Emotion, Fit, Trust and Performance” are the attributes measured through Consumer Connection metric, whereas “Energy, Ubiquity, Future Outlook, Leadership and Popularity” are measured in Brand Momentum.
Apple scoring on all parameters
Consumer connection scores for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have been strong in all three categories. All three categories measured brand momentum scores in the top 30 of all 1,500 brands that were taken into study, which reflects that consumers consider Apple as a brand for future.
Consumers have rated Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ahead of HP, Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) and Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) in the Computer Category but Quality score declined from 2012. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) gained on brand Momentum this year, which helped the Cupertino-based company to gain the spot.
Others in the list
HP was ranked second and had stable ratings again. However, it could not perform at the level it did in 2011 when its Brand Equity scores peaked. Dell has enhanced its Purchase considerations scores.
In the tablet category, top spot rivals were Amazon’s Kindle Fire series, Google’s Nexus and Samsung Galaxy Devices. Microsoft could not get a spot for its surface tablet within the top five even after anti-iPad marketing tricks. Manny Flores, Senior Vice President at Harris Interactive, said that both iPad and Amazon Kindle Fire have enhanced their Brand Equity for 2013 and have showed considerable improvement in Purchase consideration. According to Flores, the popularity of tablets shows that this technology has been desired by a greater number of sophisticated and first time buyers.
In Smartphone category, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) again led the pack, followed by Android device makers HTC, Samsung and LG. Blackberry and Windows phones could not achieve average ranking for their mobiles. Other mobile brands that ranked below average in this category were Kyocera, Motorola, Nokia, Pantech, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, and T-Mobile .
