The TRA Brand Trust Report 2018 (BTR 2018) is out and it lists India’s 1000 Most Trusted brands in categories ranging from technology to FMCG to automobiles to personal accessories. Once again, South Korean conglomorate Samsung has emerged as the brand Indians trust the most, topping the list second year in a row.

The TRA Brand Trust Report 2018, the eighth in the series that saw a syndicated research conducted among 2,488 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India, was released on Tuesday.

Advertisement

Two more conumer electronics brands Sony and LG finished second and third, respectively, retaining their 2017 rankings.

Technology giant Apple, which grabbed the fourth slot in 2017, has slipped one rank, swapping its place with last year’s fifth rank holder Tata, India’s leading multinational conglomerate.

Also maintaining its position among the top 10 is Dell, which has risen two ranks to bag the 6th slot in 2018. Honda is at 7th position, followed by Nike which has taken a quantum jump from 37th rank in 2017 to 8th rank in 2018. Nike has, in fact, shown a steady growth in performance since 2015 when its rank was 49, which it improved to 48 in 2016.

Next on the list is Hewlett Packard, which has taken a two-rank jump over last year, while Maruti Suzuki settled for the 10th slot after a three-rank fall since 2017.

Google has entered the top 20 list for the first time.

BTR is released annually by TRA Research, a brand intelligence and data insights Company that is a part of the Comniscient Group.

“Samsung’s second year as India’s Most Trusted Brand reflects the brand’s focus and commitment to building trust. Brands Sony and LG to have also showcased their consistency over the past four years ranked among the top 3 ranks over the last four years,” said N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research.

He added: “Other significant growth over last year has been shown by Oppo – rank 29 in 2017 to rank 11 in 2018, Puma – rank 44 in 2017 to rank 12 in 2018, BMW – rank 45 in 2017 to rank 15 in 2018, Google – rank 40 in 2017 to rank 18 in 2018 and Vivo – rank 59 in 2017 to rank 20 in 2018.”

Brands like Taj Mahal Tea, Moto G and Netflix too have made “a remarkable ascent” of more than 500 ranks from their rankings in 2017, said Chandramouli.

The 1000 most trusted brands were listed under 38 super-categories and 335 categories.

The categories with the maximum brands were F&B and FMCG, contributing to 25.6% of the total brands. As many as 320 new brands made it to the list.

Some of the important category leaders in brand trust have State Bank of India (all-India rank 21) from banking, financial services and insurance category, Arrow (43) from formalwear category, Pepsi (44) from F&B, Amazon (53) from online retail – diversified, American Express (167) from credit/debit card, Muthoot Finance (171) from financial services, Tanishq (258) from jewellery, Aviva Life Insurance (459) from insurance-private, and Kangaroo Kids (640) from pre-schools leading.

Bajaj (from rank 6 in 2015 to rank 16 in 2018) and Godrej (from rank 9 in 2015 to rank 17 in 2018) continued to witness a falling trend.

Speaking after report was released, Samsung India Chief Marketing Officer Ranjivjit Singh said, “Samsung believes in transforming people’s lives with its innovative technologies and solutions. Our 22-year journey in India has seen us achieve many milestones, including becoming the No. 1 smartphones and consumer electronics brand. In being chosen as the most trusted brand in India, we are truly humbled by the love that consumers have continued to bestow on us.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the TRA said the Brand Trust Report 2018 was the result of a comprehensive primary research conducted on the proprietary 61-Attribute Trust Matrix of TRA.

“This year’s study involved 15,000 hours of fieldwork, covering 2,488 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India, and generated 5 million datapoints and 9,000 unique brands, from which the top 1000 brands have been listed in this year’s report,” said the statement.

The TRA Brand Trust Report 2018 is available in a 200-page hardbound version, which is available for Rs 14,000.