Romanians prefer Volkswagen cars, HP personal computers and Nokia mobile phones, according to this year’s Trusted Brands research by Reader’s Digest.

Although Romanians tend to remain faithful to the brands that earn their trust, this year some important categories of consumer products changed leader in regard to the brand that people in Romania trust the most. For example, in the automotive brands category, Romanian brand Dacia was surpassed this year by German brand Volkswagen, the research shows.

Another change is for personal computers, where HP came before Dell this year. Vodafone overtook Orange this year as the favorite mobile service provider for Romanians and Canon came before Sony in digital cameras. Another important change was in banking services, where Romanian brand Banca Transilvania surpassed BCR, which is the largest bank in Romania.

In other consumer goods categories the leaders remained unchanged. Petrom is leader on the fuel market, RCS&RDS is the Romanians’ favorite internet service provider, Philips comes first in kitchen appliance, Nokia remains first in the mobile phone/smartphone category, and Visa is the leader of the credit card category.

When it comes to pharmaceutical and personal care brands, Romanian also stick to the same products. For example, Nurofen came first in the cough/cold remedy category in the last five years, while Algocalmin is the favored analgesic and Eurovita is the preferred vitamins brand. Romanians wash their hair with Head&Shoulders, treat their skin with Nivea creams and wash their clothes with Ariel detergent.

Some other preferred brands are Borsec for mineral water, Cris-Tim, for meat products, Jacobs for coffee, Altex for electronic retail, and Kaufland for commercial centres.

You can find the find the full report (in English) here.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com