Brands
HDFC Bank Named India’s Most Valuable Brand In Brand Ranking
MUMBAI: According to the first ever BrandZ™ Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands ranking announced today, the combined Brand Value of all the brands in the rankingis almost $70bn.HDFC Bank is India’s most valuable brand, with a value of $9.4bn. Carried out by marketing and brand consultancy Millward Brown in conjunction with WPP, the valuationis the only one in India that takes into account consumers’ opinion of brands to calculate thecontribution that product brands make to business success.
The BrandZ™ India study shows that India’s unrestricted ‘right to play’ for businesses has nurturedgreat diversity amongst brands in the ranking.The Top 50 come from 13 different categories. Seventeen are multi-national corporations (MNCs), 26 are private Indian brands and seven are state-owned brands. This indicates that India is an open, fertile market for building valuable brands, irrespective of age, origin, structure, category, ownership or even price range.
HDFC Bank, the no.1 brand, has a network in more than 2,100 cities. It is popular with its 28 million customers for launching mobile apps designed to make banking easier, and running literacy, education and skills training programmes in rural areas. The No.2 brand, Airtel, is the fourth largest mobile operator in the world with nearly 300 million customers, while India’s largest commercial bank, State Bank of India, is at No.3 in the ranking.
Services businesses (Banking, Telecoms and Insurance), which are the nerve centre of today’s Indian economy, are prominent in the ranking.Seven of the Top 10 brands, and 30% of the Top 50 brands, come from the service sector. Financial services stand out, with the12 banks and insurers in the ranking holding the largest proportion (37%) of total Brand Value.Analysis shows these brands have built value by successfully achieving scale – both ingeographical reach and the diversity of their offerings. Telecoms, Personal Care, and the Food and Dairysectors also feature strongly in the Top 50. The data shows that these brands – along with the other FMCG brands in the ranking – excel at connecting with Indian consumers.
The average Brand Contribution (ameasure of the impact brand alone has on value) of the Top 5 brands is far higher than the overall average of the Top 50, illustrating the positive impact that building a strong brand has on the financial valuation of the brand. These brands create powerful connections by being meaningful to consumers,and differentiating themselves from others.
The BrandZ™ Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands 2014
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Key findings highlighted in the BrandZTMTop 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands include:
• Being meaningful and different builds value – India’s most valuable brands are highly relevant to consumers and differentiate themselves through service, new offerings and brand experiences. One such example is personal care brand Colgate (No.28) – even after 70 years in India the brand has successfully remained relevant and continues to differentiate itself from the competition.
• India has evolved into a brand powerhouse – its Top 50 most valuable brands have as much Brand Power (consumers’ predisposition to choose that brand over another) as the global Top 50, and are ahead of the other emerging economies.
• Private sector players and multinational corporations dominate – together these contribute around 85% of total brand value. They have succeeded by nurturing a strong relationship with Indian consumers.
• Megabrands lead the game – like other fast growing economies, India is dominated by a handful of big brands or companies that own stables of brands: the Top 5 account for 45% of the ranking’s total value. Their tremendous scale and ability to cater to a wide spectrum of the population has translated into financial gains.
• ‘Balanced brands’ is the mantra – brands that are able to build both strong connections with consumers and business scale that leads to the creation of financial value are contenders for entering or rising up the BrandZ ranking. Three out ofthe Top 5 Indian brands demonstrate this balance.
• Consumer technology is ‘the category waiting to happen’ – there are currently no home-grownconsumer technology brands in the Top 50, but this category is on the verge of emergence. The presence of Indians working in the sector globally is high, and consumer-facing technology brands founded by young entrepreneurshave already started to gain ground.
• ‘Indianizing’ products and services is important – the many successful international brands in the ranking have taken the time to understand Indian needs and tastes and adapt to them. Noodles, food seasoning, soup and sauce brand Maggi (No.18), personal care brand Colgate (No.28) and beverage brand Horlicks (No.20) are mastersat this – and are thought of as Indian brands by most consumers as a result.
• Old and new sit side by side – living with one foot in the ancient world and one in the modern makes consumers equally receptive to heritage brands (Bajaj Auto, No.5, established 1945) and new brands (Airtel, No. 2, established 1995). More than a quarter of the Top 50 brands were created after the economic liberalization in 1991 while Dabur, No.22, was established 130 years ago.
Prasun Basu, Millward Brown’s Managing Director – South Asia, said, “The stronger the relationship a brand can build withconsumers in its category, and the more it canleverage that to build scale, the more sustainable and profitable it becomes. All of the Top 50brands are reputable, successful engines of growth for the future of India. Any global manufacturer that makes the effort to understand the diversity of the Indian consumer’s needs, tastes and aspirations, and which can build a proposition that is both meaningful and appropriately differentiated,will succeed in building a strong brand.”
David Roth, CEO of The Store, WPP added,“With the second highest number of social networking users in the world, and the third highest number of users of mobile devices, developing an e-commerce strategy that focuses on social and mobile platforms is essential for brands in this region.”
CVL Srinivas, CEO GroupM – South Asia, added,“We are already seeing the impact of the purchasing power of the internet and mobile users in India, with the exponential growth of e-commerce companies in the space of travel, e-tailing, ticketing and many main line brands increasing their brand building budgets to digital media in multiples.”
In addition to the rankings, special awards were also presented to brands among the Top 50 under the following categories.
Millward Brown BrandZ India Awards 2014
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Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
