TCS retains tag as India’s most valuable brand, Zomato ‘fastest riser’: Kantar Brandz

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) has retained its tag as India’s most valuable brand for a third year, Kantar Brandz said in a report.

The IT services firm’s brand value grew 16% year-on-year to $49 billion, driven by innovation in artificial intelligence and digital transformation, the Kantar Brandz Most Valuable Brands report said.

TCS was followed by HDFC Bank Ltd with a brand value of $38.3 billion and Airtel with $29.9 billion.

Food delivery firm Zomato saw the fastest growth in brand value, which doubled to $3.5 billion and earned it the “fastest riser” tag.

Zomato, which secured the 31st spot on the list, saw its brand value rise “due to relentless innovation and expansion into quick commerce,” the report said.

India’s top 75 most valuable brands now have a combined value of over $450 billion, a 19% y-o-y increase, the report added.

This year, the list saw seven newcomers, including jewelry retail brand CaratLane, which secured the 45th place with a brand value of $2.7 billion, and Punjab National Bank, which made it to the 59th place with a brand value of $2 billion.

Many Indian brands “remain heavily reliant” on the domestic market, with overseas contribution accounting for only 26% of the top 75, the report said.

Real estate was the fastest growing category with a 240% jump in brand value from the previous year to $8.17 billion, powered by the inclusion of two brands in the top 75 ranking, the study said.

Over the past two years, however, automobiles and telecom service providers emerged as “growth leader,” the study added.

On its methodology of assessing brand value, Kantar said it conducts worldwide, ongoing, in-depth, quantitative consumer research and build up a global picture of brands on a category-by-category and market-by-market basis.

The research covers over 4.3 million consumer interviews in 532 categories, and 21,000 different brands in 54 markets. This intensive, in-market consumer research differentiates the Kantar BrandZ methodology from competitors that rely only on a panel of ‘experts,’ or “purely on financial and market desktop research,” it added.

“Strong brands start with a deep understanding of consumers and their engagement with brands. This report and ranking is based on the Kantar BrandZ model of measuring brand value, linking financial data with the all-important voice of the consumer,” Deepender Rana, executive managing director for South Asia insights division at Kantar, said.

“We identify and examine the attributes shared by valuable brands across all categories, ” he added.