For the seventh year in a row despite its recent struggles, Sony remained the leading brand for U.S. consumers, a Harris Poll of "best brands" showed July 12. Sony held its lead over Dell, which retained the number two spot. Coca-Cola, previously in the fourth position, moved up to number three while Toyota captured the fourth position, up from 10th place a year ago.
The survey is positive news for Sony, a company that became a global success in the late 20th century but has been criticized for failing to keep up with the times as Apple rode the more recent portable music boom with its iPod.
The Harris survey showed Ford as number five on the list, followed by Honda, Hewlett Packard, General Electric, Kraft Foods and Apple. Two brands dropped out of the top 10 list this year, General Motors and Microsoft.
Other brands that received a substantial number of mentions but not enough to make the top-10 list included Chevrolet, Panasonic, Pepsi, Nike and Maytag.
The report was based on a survey of 2,351 adults polled by Harris between June 7 and 13.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
