Nokia most trusted brand in India: survey

Finland's mobile handset maker Nokia has emerged as the most trusted brand in India ahead of homegrown Tata, while master blaster Sachin Tendulkar has been ranked ahead of Mahatma Gandhi by a survey.

The survey titled The Brand Trust Report, India Study 2011, released here today, puts Japan's Sony in the third position, ahead of Korean consumer electronics and appliances makers LG and Samsung that are ranked at number four and five, respectively.

Undertaken by Trust Research Advisory (TRA), the survey that also included personalities as brands, puts Tendulkar at 59th position overall while the Father of The Nation, Mahatma Gandhi occupies 232nd position while actor Aamir Khan is put at 242nd rank.

Surprisingly, Bollywood's legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan's name does not figure in the top-300 list.

The survey is based on responses and views on 16,000 brands from 2,310 participants across nine top cities in India.

"The results are based on the level of trust every individual has in all these brands," TRA Chief Executive Officer N Chandramouli told reporters here.

Other big names that made their way into the 'top ten trusted brands' slot are Reliance, Maruti, LIC, Airtel and Titan, in that order.

He said people had ranked the brands irrespective of their ownership and it took four months and 10,000 hours of field work to arrive at the findings.

Another interesting highlight of the survey was that soft drink major Pepsi occupied 36th position, way ahead of its rival Coca-Cola which was ranked at 60th place.

In the report priced at Rs 4,350 per copy, TRA has published a list of only the top 300 brands across industry sectors.

Though Chandramouli did not divulge the project cost of the research, he said the report was priced over Rs 4,000, as it was the only way to generate revenues.

"We will have to sell atleast 7,000 copies of the report to become profitable," he said.

According to the report, the 61 primary components of 'Brand Trust' have been grouped into 10 composites like empathy, perceived competence, commanding respect, displayed sincerity, enthusiasm, accepting responsibility among others.