Of the 23 brands, 11 Indian brands are present, making the three Indian majors – Micromax (All-India Rank 25), Lava (All-India Rank 32) and Intex (All-India Rank 82) brands to watch out for. The mobile category in The Brand Trust Report, India Study 2016 recently launched by TRA (formerly Trust Research Advisory)features a balance of both international and Indian mobile brands. The desi brands have climbed a significant number in their overall trust ranking making some of them also to feature among the top 10 in the category. Micromax and Intex have grown steadily in their trust ranking for the last five years (2012-2016). With Micromax rising from All-India Rank 126 in 2012 to All-India Rank 25 in 2016. Similarly, Intex maintains a consistent growth from All-India Rank 378 to All-India Rank 82 in 2016. Lava showed a steady trust rise from 2012 to 2014 however fell in rank in 2015 to only gain back 73 ranks this year.
“Micromax is high in trust in spite of losing market share. They should change strategy from pricing to innovation to keep the edge. The presence of a substantial number of Chinese and Indian brands highlights the evolution of the country’s mobile sector that is now posing competition to leaders,” said N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA.
The Indian brands are not only paired up with renowned international players like Samsung Mobiles (All-India Rank 1), HTC (All-India Rank 37), Motorola (All-India Rank 72) and Xiaomi (All-India Rank 728) but are also giving them a tough trust competition. The other promising Indian mobile brands in the category are Karbonn(All-India Rank 133),Spice(All-India Rank 180), Celkon(All-India Rank 397),Xolo(All-India Rank 404),Maxx Mobiles(All-India Rank 568)with new entrants Monix Mobile (All-India Rank 568), Hitech (All-India Rank 896) and Geepee Mobile (All-India Rank 925).
These revelations are the result of The Brand Trust Report 2016, the sixth in its series. It is the result of comprehensive primary research conducted on the proprietary 61-Attribute Trust Matrix of TRA (formerly known as Trust Research Advisory). This year’s study involved 18,000 hours of fieldwork covering 2500 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India and generated 6 million data-points and 20,000 unique brands from which the top 1000 brands have been listed in this year’s report.