Both Apple and Samsung have taken a hit to their reputations, according to the 2017 Global RepTrak 100, a listing of the world's most reputable companies prepared by the Reputation Institute.
Apple fell 10 places from last year to rank 20th in this year's list while Samsung fell 53 places to 70th, after being 17th in the 2016 listing.
While Samsung's drop was to be expected, given its problems with the Galaxy Note7 and washing machines, and the indictment of its vice-president over alleged bribery, Apple's fall was also noticeable, given that it topped the Global RepTrak in 2011.
The Reputation Institute claims to be the world's leading research and advisory firm for reputation. The RepTrak 100 measures the world's most highly-regarded and familiar global companies in 15 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
{loadposition sam08}Firms that are included must have a significant economic presence in these countries, have a reputation that is above average in their home countries and have a global familiarity of more than 40%.
A total of 170,000 consumers were polled to compile the 2017 list. As with the Harris Poll, which measures the reputation of only US companies, iTWire, being a technology publication, will focus on the tech companies in the list.
Google was the top tech company in the list at fifth, a drop of two positions from 2016. Sony came in seventh and Intel eighth.
Region-wise Google was the top tech firm in North America coming in second; in Latin America, the company was first. In the EMEA region, Sony was the top tech firm, coming in fifth on that list. And in Asia, Intel took the top spot for tech firms, finishing third.
On the top 100 global list, Microsoft was 11th, Nintendo 16th, Amazon.com 18th, IBM 19th and Apple 20th.
Other tech firms to figure were Philips at 21st, Cisco (24th), Panasonic (35th), HP Inc (36th), Netflix (40th), Siemens (47th), LG (63rd), Oracle (64th), SAP (65th), Xerox (67th), Dell (68th), Samsung (70th), Toshiba (75th), Nokia (76th), Hitachi (81st), eBay (83rd), LinkedIn (86th), Sharp (88th), Fujitsu (90th), and Ericcson (91st).
The 10 most important factors that contribute to reputation are: offering high-quality products and services, meeting customer needs, products and services are good value for money, standing behind products and services, having a positive influence on society, behaving ethically, doing business in a fair manner, being a well-organised company, displaying openness and transparency, and generally being first to market with new products and services.
The list can be downloaded here after registration.