Discount department store Kmart has remained in the third position in Roy Morgan’s top-trusted brands in Australia for the third consecutive quarter, just behind Aldi and Bunnings.
Toyota in fourth, Apple in fifth and Australia Post in sixth were all unchanged from last quarter.
Bunnings has held the top spot as Australia’s most trusted brand for four consecutive quarters since taking the top spot at the end of last year from the previous leader Woolworths. In mid-2023 the two major supermarkets held the top two spots as Australia’s most trusted brands – but have since fallen completely out of favour.
The performances of Aldi and IGA, both ranked within Australia’s top 15 most trusted brands, prove that not all supermarkets have lost the trust of Australians during the current cost of living crisis.
The only notable movement in the top ten trusted brands by Roy Morgan is Big W, which moved up one place to seventh, while the NRMA moved up one spot to eighth, both at the expense of Myer, down two ranking places to ninth.
There were also businesses in the top 20 trusted brands that slid during the quarter including IGA which fell down two places to 15th and another two-spot fall for David Jones, now at 20th position.
ABC, Nike and Bendigo Bank all dropped by one place.
Telecommunications company Optus is once again the most distrusted brand in Australia, a position held by the Singaporean-owned telco for a sixth straight quarter stretching back to mid-2023.
Continuing its slide which began just over a year ago was Woolworths, dropping a further three places to be the second most distrusted brand in the September quarter. Rival Coles hasn’t fared much better, down a further ranking place to be the third most distrusted brand.
Both major supermarkets have lost well over 200 places in the trust rankings compared to a year ago.
The continued slide in rankings of the major supermarkets handed some rare good news to Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, improving two spots to 4th most distrusted, and Facebook/Meta, also improving two spots to 5th.
Other brands to fare poorly in the latest quarter included online Chinese retailers Temu, deteriorating two spots in the distrust rankings to 8th, and Shein which deteriorated by one spot to 20th. Electric car company Tesla also fell one place to be the 18th most distrusted brand in Australia.
Resource companies Rio Tinto deteriorated one spot in the distrust rankings to 13th and BP deteriorated three spots to 15th, in the current quarter. However, BP rival Shell fared better, improving its ranking by two spots to 17th.
There were several other companies in the top 20 distrusted brands to improve their rankings in the latest quarter including two high-profile social media companies Twitter/X which improved by one spot to 9th, and TikTok, also improving one place as the 10th most distrusted brand in Australia.
Two other brands well known to the Roy Morgan trusted and distrusted brand rankings also improved their standing, with Harvey Norman improving one spot to 14th and Medibank improving two spots to 19th, both improving further from their previous rankings among the top ten most distrusted brands in the country.