Apple has retained the "Brand of the year" title for the third year in a row in three major categories, according to latest results from the Harris Poll EquiTrend study.
Apple may have seen a drop in sales with the increase in competition in the market, but continues to be favored among the Americans. According to 2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend study, released Friday, Apple was crowned the "Brand of the Year" by American consumers in three major categories including, computers, smartphones and tablet devices.
The Harris Poll EquiTrend study is based on perceptions of more than 38,000 American consumers on over 1,500 different brands in 155 different categories. Apple ruled out other competitors in computer manufacturing and gained the number one position with its unblemished PCs and laptops. Hewlett-Packard (HP) Computers, Dell Computers and Sony Computers followed suit, respectively.
In tablet brand category, Apple stood first again with other manufacturers including Kindle, Google, Samsung, HP brand tablets trailing behind it. The Cupertino Company also held the top position in smartphone category with its iPhone devices. Samsung slipped to the third place after HTC, despite showing heavy sales of its Galaxy series worldwide. LG also made its way into the list in the fourth place in the Mobile Brand of the Year. Other mobile companies including Blackberry and Nokia were ranked below average.
"Americans continue to give Apple brands strong ratings," Manny Flores, senior vice president at Harris Interactive, said in a statement. "And while their Consumer Connection scores are strong within their respective categories, what really stands out is that in all three of the categories Apple brands are measured -- computer, tablet, and mobile phone -- its Brand Momentum scores are in the top 30 of all 1,500 brands evaluated in the study, showing that consumers see this as a brand of the future."
The consumers rated each brand in terms of Consumer Connection which evaluated factors such as Emotion, Fit, Trust and Performance. The Brand Momentum, which looked at Energy, Ubiquity, Future Outlook, Leadership, and Popularity, was also the base of customer ratings.
Harris Poll also included other categories, where consumers rated the best mobile network brand of the year. Verizon was the leader in both pre-paid and contract-based mobile network category. HP was recognized as the Printer Brand of the Year for 2013, followed by Canon, Kodak, Samsung and Xerox. Similarly, the Online Computer Retailer Brand of the Year was given to Newegg.com, while Microsoft.com coming in second. Apple ranked third with its Store.Apple.com and last above category average was BestBuy.com.
The survey was conducted online from January 11 through February 8, 2013.
