Half of the 10 companies ranked highest in a reputation survey in 2016 by United Kingdom consumers did not return for an encore in 2017. And for the first time in three years, toy-maker Lego is no longer the company with the best reputation among U.K. consumers.

One company that made big strides was Volkswagen, which saw its reputation score rise from 55.3 in 2016 to 68.3 in 2017. That wasn’t enough, however, to move the automaker back into the 150 companies on the list developed by the Reputation Institute. In the institute’s earlier listing of the companies with the best reputations globally, Volkswagen eked in at number 100 with a score of 64.73.

According to the Reputation Institute, there are seven key rational dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance. The Reputation Institute collected about 40,000 ratings from U.K. respondents who are either “somewhat” or “very” familiar with the companies they rated and who have completed at least 75% of the rating survey.

The 10 companies and their reputation scores are:

1. Dyson: 86.8
2. Aston Martin: 85.4
3. Lego: 85.0
4. Michelin: 84.0
5. Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE): 83.7
6. Waitrose: 83.5
7. Intel Corp. (NYSE: INTC): 83.5
8. PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL)
9. Samsung: 83.0
10. Rolls-Royce Aerospace: 82.3

In the global survey, Rolex finished at the top, followed by Lego and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS). Sony, Intel and Rolls-Royce also finished in the top 10 globally.

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google finished in 11th place and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) ranked 74th, a rather long way behind smartphone competitor Samsung, irrespective of Samsung’s fiasco with its Galaxy Note 7 device.

Get Our Free Investment Newsletter

I have read, and agree to the Terms of Use

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.