Photographs: Reuters A Correspondent in Mumbai
Brands have become a major driver of business growth today. A brand is a key asset for a company and it takes a ton of funds to be created, established and nurtured.
For a long time, foreign brands held sway in India. Any product associated with a 'foreign brand' was instantly considered to be better than an Indian product.
But those days are fading now. In the last few years, some great Indian brands have come up that have sizzled in the domestic as well as the international markets.
These Indian brands enjoy top-of-the-mind recall, formidable customer loyalty and thus huge market share in the country.
So which is the best brand in India? We have here a list of 20 popular brands. These brands are NOT ranked.
Please take the poll at the end of the slide show to select the one which you feel is India's top brand. If your favourite brand is not among the ones listed here, please mention it in the message board below.
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Vote: Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Rediff Archive
Tata Motors Ltd
The Ratan Tata-led Tata Motors is the India's biggest automobile company that manufactures passenger cars, trucks, buses, commercial vehicles, pick-ups, etc. Its revenues are to the tune of around $20 billion.
The company that employs close to 25,000 people, is also the maker of Nano, the world's cheapest car.
Ratan Tata is the chairman of the company; Ravi Kant is vice chairman, and Carl Peter Forster is the chief executive officer of Tata Motors.
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Vote: Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Reliance Industries Ltd
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's largest company in terms of market capitalisation, which stands at Rs 3,51,380.08 crore currently), is also one of the few Fortune 500 companies in India.
The Reliance empire was founded by the late Dhirubhai Ambani in 1966. After his death, his two sons Mukesh and Anil ran the show. However, soon schisms appeared in the relationship and the group was split into two are much acrimony.
The Ambani brothers have now called a truce, though their respective businesses remain independent of each other.
Reliance Industries is a petrochemicals giant led by Mukesh Ambani, who is also the chairman and managing director of the company.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel is India's largest and the world's fifth largest cellular operator, with a user base of over 200 million globally.
Sunil Bharti Mittal is the chairman of the company.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Courtesy, Amul
Amul
The Anand, Gujarat-based Kaira District Milk Cooperative Union (better known as Amul) is a cooperative body managed by the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.
Amul is a brand name under which the GCMMF sells milk, butter, ghee, chocolates, etc. It is one of India's top brands.
In December 1946, a group of farmers formed a cooperative organisation to gain access to markets directly and obtain best returns for their efforts and products. This was the origin of Amul.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Maruti Suzuki
Maruti Suzuki, earlier called Maruti Udyog Ltd till the government of India divested its stake in the company to Suzuki Motors Corporation, is India's largest passenger car maker.
The company enjoys more than 42 per cent of the car market share in India.
It manufactures some bestsellers like the Alto, Swift, Wagon-R, SX4, etc.
Shinzo Nakanishi is the company's managing director and chief executive.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Rediff Archive
Infosys Technologies Ltd
The Bengaluru-based Infosys is the bellwether of the Indian information technology services sector. It is the country's third largest IT firm, and has over 120,000 employees.
It was founded over 30 years ago by N R Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, N S Raghavan, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal, K Dinesh and Ashok Arora. Arora later quit the company to settle in the United States.
S 'Kris' Gopalakrishnan is the company's CEO, while Narayana Murthy is the chairman and chief mentor.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
ITC Ltd
ITC, which was earlier called the Imperial Tobacco Company, is a cigarettes to hotels major.
The diversified group has interests in cigarettes, paper, packaging, agri-business, IT, stationery, etc.
Yogesh Chander Deveshwar is the firm's chairman.
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Which is India's best brand?
HDFC Bank
HDFC Bank is a financial services major with more than 1,700 branches across India. It is headquartered in Mumbai.
The bank was promoted by the Housing Development Finance Corporation.
Aditya Puri is the managing director of the bank.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Rediff Archive
Videocon
Videocon is an industrial conglomerate with interests all over the world and based in India.
The Videocon Group is one of India's biggest consumer electronics and home appliances firms.
It manufactures television sets, washing machines, refrigerators, mobile phones, microwave ovens, and air-conditioners.
Its annual revenues are in excess of $2 billion.
Venugopal Dhoot is Videocon's chairman.
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Which is India's best brand?
Britannia Industries
Britannia Industries is one of India's top biscuits manufacturer. Based in Bengaluru, the company is estimated to hold sway over almost 35 per cent of the country's share in the biscuits market.
Vinita Bali is Britannia Industries managing director, while Nusli Wadia is the company's chairman.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Godrej Group
Led by chairman Adi Godrej, the Godrej Group is one of India's largest and best known conglomerates.
It manufactures office equipment, storage solutions, appliances, precision equipment, machine tools, furniture, etc.
The group also has interests in healthcare, food-processing, security, etc.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Courtesy, Mahindra and Mahindra
Mahindra & Mahindra
Mahindra & Mahindra is one of India's largest automobile manufacturers.
It is a multinational conglomerate with interests in financial services, information technology, infrastructure, farm equipment, etc.
Mahindra is one of the most reputable Indian brands.
Anand Mahindra is the vice chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Bajaj Auto
Bajaj Auto is a major Indian automobile company, headquartered in Pune.
Once Bajaj Auto was India's largest scooter-maker, but it no longer makes scooters. Its focus is now on motorcycles and auto-rickshaws.
Rahul Bajaj is the company's chairman and his son, Rajiv, the managing director of Bajaj Auto.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Tata Consultancy Services
Tata Consultancy Services is India's largest software services company.
The Mumbai-headquartered IT giant has a presence in 42 countries with more than 142 branches across the globe.
Ratan Tata is the chairman, N Chandrasekaran is the chief executive officer, and S Ramadorai is the vice chairman of TCS.
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Which is India's best brand?
State Bank of India
The State Bank of India is the nation's largest bank. Its roots rest in the first decade of 19th century, when the Bank of Calcutta, later renamed the Bank of Bengal, was established on June 2, 1806.
The Bank of Bengal and two other Presidency banks, namely, the Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Madras, amalgamated on January 27, 1921, as the Imperial Bank of India. On April 30, 1955, the Imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India.
The Government of India recently acquired the Reserve Bank of India's stake in SBI so as to remove any conflict of interest because the RBI is the country's banking regulatory authority.
O P Bhatt is the bank's chairman.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Hero Honda Motors
Hero Honda Motors is the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturer.
What began as a joint venture between the Hero Group of India and Honda of Japan in 1984, was split in Dec ember 2010, when the Munjals-promoted Hero Group said it would buy the entire 26 per cent stake of its Japanese partner Honda in the company.
As part of a new licensing agreement with Honda, the Hero Group will buy Honda's 26 per cent stake in Hero Honda.
Brijmohan Lal Munjal is the chairman of Hero Group, while Pawan Munjal is the chief executive.
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Which is India's best brand?
Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Hindustan Unilver Ltd is India's largest fast moving consumer goods company.
The FMCG major, HUL, has beaten its parent company, Unilever, to be ranked 69th in the world. It obtained a Global Pulse Score of 74.99.
The Anglo-Dutch company Unilever owns a 52% majority stake.
HUL was formed in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Ltd and came into being in 1956 as Hindustan Lever Ltd.
The company which employs more than 15,000 people is led by chairman Harish Manwani and chief executive Nitin Paranjpe.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Grasim Industries Ltd
Grasim Industries is an Aditya Birla Group textiles major. It was established in 1948.
Grasim has over a period of time diversified into cement, chemicals, sponge iron, etc.
Kumar Mangalam Birla is Grasim's chairman and managing director.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Reliance Communications
Reliance Communications, of the largest cellular operators in India, is the flagship firm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. It was earlier called Reliance Infocomm.
A part of the erstwhile Reliance Industries empire, the company went to Anil Ambani when the group spilt up.
Anil Ambani is the chairman of the company, while Satish Seth is the managing director.
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Which is India's best brand?
Photographs: Reuters
Wipro
India's second largest IT services company, Wipro, employs over 120,000 people worldwide.
Besides information technology, Wipro also has interests in healthcare, lighting, consumer care, and engineering.
Azim Premji is the chairman of company, while Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani are the joint chief executives of the firm.
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