Team BE
Size does matter when it comes to sales. In this definitive list of India’s Biggest Brands, Coke and Pepsi release their sales figures for the first time – they’re still no bigger than the oldest FMCG flame of all : Gold Flake.
Brand Equity takes you through the ranks.

NOTHING hurts a marketer more than sales figures which reveal that a rival brand is outselling it. After all, the motto of the brand game is : “The bigger you are, the better you are”, and marketers are in a constant battle for that coveted No 1 spot. In 2002, the No 1 spot in Brand Equity’s first listing of India’s 100 Biggest FMCG brands was the cigarette brand Gold Flake. Year 2003 is no different, and Gold Flake remains India’s biggest FMCG brand in terms of sales for the second year running.

Like last year, we’ve put together most of these figures from the AC Neilsen Retail audit except in the case of two categories – cigarettes and carbonated soft drinks. These categories are not included in the retail audit, so we’ve depended on other sources. For soft drinks, the figures have been supplied by the companies owning the brands, and the figures for the cigarette brands are put together from a mixture of market intelligence and figures supplied by senior officials of the companies concerned.

The top 10 brands put together are worth Rs16,208 crore – that’s more than a third of the total cumulative sales of Rs42,621 crore for the hot 100 brands. Of these, 45 brands are in the broad area of foods – including processed foods, beverages, edible oils and confectionery. The top 10 for 2003 comprises three tobacco brands, three cola brands, two biscuit brands, one detergent brand and one personal care brand. Only two home-grown Indian brands – Nirma and Parle – are present in the top 10 with the remaining eight being owned by MNCs. These two brands account for over 20% of the cumulative sales of all Indian-owned brands present on the list. In all there are 33 Indian brands on the list (down from last year’s 38) and 67 owned by multi-nationals. MNC brands have also managed to increase their revenue share from 70% last year, to 75% this year. ITC continues its dominance of the biggest of the big, with three brands from its stable making it to the top five. Wills (See box Puff Of Smoke) drops from No 2 to No 4, while Pepsi and Thums Up move up one slot each, and Coca-Cola gains one place to move up to No 7. The only new entrant into the top 10 this year is cigarette brand Scissors at No 5 – it didn’t feature last year, as data on its sales was not available. Its entrance means that Britannia is nudged into sixth place. The largest fall in the top 10 though, is registered by Colgate which falls from No 6 last year to No 10 this year.


PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON

SMOKING maybe going out of fashion, but cigarette brands in India don’t seem to be slowing down. In all there are six cigarette brands which make the Hot 100 – Gold Flake, Wills Navy Cut, Scissors, Four Square, Red and White and Cavanders. These brands tot up sales of Rs 8,000 crore combined, which is almost 20% of the total value of the Hot 100. ITC obviously dominates the ranking like no other marketer, with three of its brands in the top 5. Gold Flake continues to be twice as big as its nearest competitor, and has even grown by almost 8% in the last one year. For those of you wondering why Wills has slipped from No 2 to No 4, there’s a simple explanation. Unlike last year, the Wills sales numbers don’t include the numbers for the Wills Classic sub-brand as they did last year – (accurate and reliable estimates of the Classic sub-brand were unavailable). Scissors, an ITC brand, which is very popular down South has made its debut at No 5. The brand didn’t feature in our last ranking because data for the brand was unavailable. It will be interesting to see whether the sales of cigarette brands come down next given the proposed ban on tobacco advertising from May 1 this year.