ALG Launches "Brand Pricing Score" to Rank Automotive Brands' Impact, Pricing Power

SANTA BARBARA, CA--Nov. 7, 2013: ALG, the industry benchmark for automotive residual values, has upgraded and re-launched its metric for automakers to compare the value of a vehicle brand and its effect on residual values. Now known as the ALG Brand Pricing Score, it helps industry experts understand brand differences and the elements that positively or negatively affect brand value.

Complete Brand Pricing Score Rankings and Charts are available at ALG Pricing

The Brand Pricing Score ranks automotive brands in two categories—mainstream and luxury—with each class having separate rankings for the new and used vehicle markets.

For the new vehicle market, the top-ranking mainstream brands according to ALG are Mini, Buick and Subaru, while the top three luxury brands for new vehicles are Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

Among used vehicles, Mini also has the highest Brand Pricing Score for mainstream brands, followed by Subaru and Honda. With used luxury vehicles, Porsche again leads the way, followed by Audi and Mercedes-Benz.

"A brand is often what puts a car on shopping lists in the first place," said Eric Lyman, Vice President of Partner Development and Editorial for ALG. "The ALG Brand Pricing Score measures the pricing power the brand has on its' models and, subsequently, their residual value,"

Using data from new car transaction prices, used car auction prices and other factors, the ALG Brand Pricing Score excludes extraneous influences that contribute to volatility in new and used car prices to create a measurable score for each brand's value.

The Brand Pricing Score replaces ALG's Statistical Brand Value as a measure of brand pricing power. The updated metric puts more emphasis on recent data, allowing it to better capture the current state of the market. There are also improvements with how the model deals with used supply data and comparisons between segments.

For instance, if a consumer sees two identical cars, but each has a different brand badge, one car might have a significant premium over the other. The ALG Brand Pricing Score isolates the pricing power each brand brings to the new and used vehicle market.

The complete ALG Brand Pricing Score rankings are available at ALG Pricing