Best Global Brands 2008

Rank: 1

Company: Coca Cola Inc
Coca-Cola took the top spot among the Top 10 Global Brands 2008 for the eighth year in a row. Its sales surged in Asia, with Olympic sponsorship boosting its profile. But at the home front, the company continued to record sluggish sales.

Rank: 2

Company: IBM
IT major International Business Machines (IBM) pushed ahead of Microsoft for the first change to the top four since at least 2001.

Rank: 3

Company: Microsoft Corporation
Bill Gates brainchild Microsoft Corporation held the third position in 2008.

Rank: 4

Company: GE
GE held onto fourth position among the Best Global Brands 2008.

Rank: 5

Company: Nokia
Finnish telecom company Nokia was at no 5, amid all the iPhone buzz across the globe. Its reputation for quality put it far ahead of rivals in India and other emerging markets.

Rank: 6

Company: Toyota
Car maker Toyota held the sixth position in the list of Top 10 Global Brands for 2008.

Rank: 7

Company: Intel
The annual study on the hottest brands in the world showed that tech companies put on the strongest showing while financial companies were the weakest.

Rank: 8

Company: McDonald's
To qualify for inclusion in the Best Global Brands 2008 list, each brand must derive at least a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognisable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data.

Rank: 9

Company: Walt Disney
To capitalize on a consumer trend for marking important events with vacations, its parent the Walt Disney Co will offer free tickets to parkgoers in the US on their birthdays in 2009.

Rank: 10

Company: Google Inc
Internet search engine Google jumped ten spots to reach at number 10 in the list of the Best Global Brands 2008. Google's brand value shot up by 43 per cent, from 21.9 billion dollars to 31.5 billion dollars.  
 

  

Future of Indian consumer durables market

Indian Market is fast moving towards high-end customized products, which are aesthetically designed to complement the modern households. The need at this moment of time is to continuously innovate and come out with product variations across categories to meet the expectations of a varied class of customers.

This year, the leading consumer durables players forecast 15 per cent growth for the sector. In 2006, the consumer durables and home appliances sector experienced growth of 14 per cent and was pegged at Rs 3.7 billion.

According to sources, dismantling of quantitative restrictions on imports of consumer electronics has let to customer tariffs gradually coming down. In such environment, the industrial units could only survive by improving the efficiency and productivity.

India is a fast developing country and is proving to be a major challenge to the already established countries of the world. The industry expects to grow by 10 per cent for refrigerators and 60 per cent for washing machines this year. In a sector, where new products are being introduced with increasing frequency and lifecycle of products getting shorter, research and development plays an important role.

I believe that this area needs to be regularly updated with newer technologies, so that the innovations are meaningful to the customers. Setting up of manufacturing facilities by MNCs in India, which not only meet international standards but also reduce trade barriers between two countries and give a thrust to the exports of the company, which is very important.

At this moment of time, the consumer electronic industry has come a long way and is making state-of-the-art products and quality is earmarked immense importance. Point to be noted here is that the quality of any product is directly linked with exports from India to other countries. India has lately become a manufacturing hub for many companies to make quality products. In the last few years, this sector has shown tremendous growth, resulting in annual growth rate of close to 50 per cent.

Soap Market in India

Personal Wash (Soaps)

The personal wash can be segregated into:

• Premium- Lux, Dove
• Economy- Nirma Bath, Lifebuoy
• Popular- Nirma, Cinthol

The price of the premium segment products is twice that of economy segment products. The economy and popular segments are 4/5ths of the entire soaps market. The penetration level of toilet soaps is 88.6%. However, the per capita consumption of soap in India is at 460 gms per annum, while in Brazil it is at 1,100 gms per annum. In India, soaps are available in five million retail stores, out of which, 3.75 million retail stores are in the rural areas. Therefore, availability of these products is not an issue. 70% of India's population resides in the rural areas; hence around 50% of the soaps are sold in the rural markets.

Growth
With increase in disposable incomes, growth in rural demand is expected to increase because consumers are moving up towards premium products. However, in the recent past there has not been much change in the volume of premium soaps in proportion to economy soaps, because increase in prices has led some consumers to look for cheaper substitutes.

The major players in personal wash (Soap) market are HLL, Nirma and P&G. Now ITC and Godrej also come in the Race .