Bunnings is Australia’s most trusted brand – despite new challenges, while CBA, NAB and BHP are the big improvers
It’s official once again: Bunnings is the most trusted brand in the 12 months to March 2025 – a sixth consecutive quarterly victory for the ubiquitous hardware retailer stretching back to late 2023.
Filling out the top five places are cut-price supermarket Aldi in second, discount department store Kmart in third, technology and consumer products giant Apple in fourth and leading car manufacturer Toyota in fifth – all top five places were unchanged from last quarter.
There were significant movers outside the top five with Big W up one spot to 7th, JB Hi-Fi entering the Top 10 most trusted brands in 10th, Commonwealth Bank increasing an impressive four spots to 12th - the largest move of any highly trusted brand and ING up two places to enter the Top 20 – in 20th.
The big improvers were NAB, which increased a massive 112 spots to land in 48th position overall and mining giant BHP which increased 93 places to enter the Top 100 most trusted brands in 66th.
The biggest sliders in the top 20 were Target, which dropped four places to 16th and the ABC, which was down two spots and out of the Top 20 in 21st position. The ABC has now dropped in three consecutive quarters by a total of six places and out of the Top 20 most trusted brands for the first time.
According to Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine:
“Bunnings continues to ride high as Australia’s most trusted brand in early 2025. However, there are rising challenges for the brand with distrust steadily rising since mind-2023.
“The key factors driving the rise in distrust for Bunnings centre on concerns about the company’s size and market dominance, excessive profit motives and unaffordable price increases and dishonesty – all topics covered in the recent Four Corners program which focused in on Australia’s leading hardware retailer.
“The top ten most distrusted brands were little changed with the top seven unchanged while the big mover – in the wrong direction – was Tesla – which increased three ranking places and moved into the Top 10 most distrusted brands for the first time in tenth position.”
Figure 1: Australia’s 10 most trusted and 10 most distrusted brands in March 2025. Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia). Risk Monitor, 12 month average to March 2025. Base: Australians 14+, n=23,870. Arrows with numbers show ranking change since December 2024.
Trusted Brands – Bunnings, ALDI, Kmart, Apple, Toyota and Australia Post are the top six again
Bunnings (1st) has retained top spot as the most trusted brand in the March quarter despite the aforementioned challenges – the popular hardware chain’s sixth straight quarterly victory atop the rankings.
Filling out the top six places were ALDI (2nd), Kmart (3rd), Apple (4th), Toyota (5th) and Australia Post (6th) – all unchanged from the December quarter 2024.
There were two movers in the top 10 most trusted brands with Big W up one spot to 7th and JB Hi-Fi entering the top 10 in tenth position. Outside the top 10, the Commonwealth Bank improved their ranking by four spots to 12th, after recovering from a fall in the previous quarterly rankings, and ING improved two spots to enter the top 20 in twentieth. Nike was up one place to 13th and Ikea improved by one spot to 19th.
The two big movers in the overall rankings were NAB which increased by a massive 112 places to 48th and BHP which was up an impressive 93 positions to 66th overall.
The biggest sliders in the top 20 brands were Target, down four places to 16th and the ABC, which dropped two spots to land outside the top 20 for the first time in 21st. Trust in the ABC has fallen by 66% since the end of the pandemic. Other brands to fall slightly in the rankings included Myer, down one spot to 8th , Samsung, down one place to 11th, and Bendigo Bank, down one position to 14th most trusted brand.
Distrusted Brands – Woolworths and Coles are the most distrusted, while Tesla’s slide continues
The supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles are again Australia’s two most distrusted brands for a second straight quarter.
Behind the two supermarkets the top seven most distrusted brands were unchanged and included telecommunications company Optus (3rd), social media company Facebook/Meta (4th), national airline Qantas (5th), telecommunications company Telstra (6th) and Chinese discount online retailer Temu (7th).
The biggest slider in the top 20 most distrusted brands was Tesla which deteriorated three spots to land as Australia’s tenth most distrusted brand. Distrust in Tesla has increased rapidly over the last year as CEO Elon Musk has tied himself closely to US President Donald Trump. In addition, the Elon Musk owned X/ (formerly Twitter) is even more distrusted in eighth position, a slide of one place from last quarter.
Roy Morgan’s special pre-election research into Australia’s most trusted and distrusted politicians found Trump was the third most distrusted politician behind only former Liberal Party Leader Peter Dutton and Clive Palmer, leader of the Trumpet of Patriots party – which failed to win a single seat at the election.
The other big sliders in the rankings were two technology centred firms including Chinese discount online retailer, Shein, deteriorating two spots to be the 15th most distrusted brand, and Google, which deteriorated three spots to land as the 20th most distrusted brand.
There were several distrusted companies to improve their rankings including News Corp which improved one spot to 9th, TikTok which landed in 12th, an improvement of two ranking spots, Nestle, up one spot to 13th and Harvey Norman, improving two places to 17th.
Interestingly, Medibank has dropped out of the top 20 most distrusted brands list and is now ranked 21st while despite still being more distrusted than the other major banks, ANZ has improved 28 rankings to become the nation’s 54th most distrusted brand.
According to Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine there are positive signs – even for some of Australia’s most distrusted brands:
/“Importantly, we’re seeing green shoots of recovery for several of Australia’s most distrusted brands – including Woolworths and Coles.
“The two major supermarkets have finally stabilised and stopped falling deeper into net distrust – but they both still have a long way to go to regain trust. In addition, there are solid gains for Optus and Qantas which are both now clearly on the upswing.
“The recovery of Qantas is following a trajectory that aligns closely with Roy Morgan’s Benchmark Recovery Rate, showing a near-consistent upward trend. Despite a temporary dip in March 2025, Qantas’ recovery has remained largely on track.
“The major data outage compounded the damage from Optus’s initial data breach scandal, significantly setting the brand back in its trust recovery efforts. While progress has been slow, recent signs suggest it may finally be regaining lost ground, tracking more closely with Roy Morgan’s Benchmark Recovery Rate.”
Subscribe to Roy Morgan’s YouTube channel to ensure you don’t miss our next webinar on trust and distrust: https://www.youtube.com/c/roymorganaus. The Risk Report with rankings of over 250 brands and analysis by industry is now available for purchase here. Trust and Distrust Webinar Reports with insights into trust and distrust across various industries are available here.
The Roy Morgan Risk Monitor surveys approximately 2,000 Australians every month (around 25,000 per year) to measure levels of trust and distrust of around 1,000 brands across 27 industries. Respondents are asked which brands they trust, and why, and which brands they distrust, and why. The survey is designed to be open-ended, context-free, and unprompted. Roy Morgan Risk Monitor data is available in a variety of formats, from snapshot overviews to detailed tracking of individual brands and competitors. Industry Trust and Brand Health Surveys are also conducted (e.g. recent Private Health Insurance and Agribusiness Surveys, Travel and Tourism, Telco, Utilities, Insurance, Banking, Media, Retail, Real Estate, etc.) for deep insights into brand health, perceptions of, and customer experience (CX) with brands.
To learn more call (+61) (3) 9224 5309 or email askroymorgan@roymorgan.com.
About Roy Morgan
Roy Morgan is the source of the most comprehensive data on Australians’ behaviour and attitudes, surveying over 1,000 people weekly in a continuous cycle that has been running for two decades. The company has more than 80 years’ experience collecting objective, independent information.
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
