Investors are less confident now: Soumya Mohanty’s caution echoes through Kantar BrandZ 2025

New Delhi: When the team behind India’s biggest brand valuation study opens its annual report with a warning about cooling markets and tempering investor confidence, it signals something deeper than a soft economic cycle. It signals a shift in the mood of Indian business.

At the launch of the Kantar BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Indian Brands 2025 ranking, Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director & Chief Solutions Officer, South Asia, captured the underlying anxiety shaping this year’s results with stark clarity.

“The financial markets are much cooler right now compared to the way they were in 2020, 2023–24. The kind of values the market was giving the brands—it’s not giving it to that level. So the stock market indices are not as frothy as they were in the past because, obviously, investors are seeing the balance sheets and seeing the returns being filed and are therefore not as confident as they were.”

Top 100 brands now worth $523.5 billion

Kantar’s new report valued the Top 100 Indian brands at $523.5 billion in 2025, representing 13% of the nation’s GDP. It’s a powerful reminder of how central brand equity has become in shaping India’s economic narrative. This year’s list expanded to a full 100 brands, of which 34 brands increased their value, indicating that well-managed brands are still outperforming the market despite macro headwinds.

Deepender Rana, Executive Managing Director, South Asia, put this in perspective: “While the overall brand value growth has slowed to 6%, India’s ten fastest-growing brands grew by an average of 42%, which is an astounding seven times faster. This outperformance is largely due to investment in driving meaningful difference, innovating and staying close to the needs of the consumers.”

HDFC Bank reclaims no. 1

HDFC Bank once again leads the ranking as India’s most valuable brand at $44.9 billion, growing 18% this year. The bank has now increased its brand value by 377% since the first BrandZ India report in 2014, cementing a decade-long run of innovation-led leadership. Its digital-first approach, customer-centric design, and even creative narratives like the Vigil Aunty fraud-awareness persona have helped the bank stay consistently ahead of the curve. “With a strong commitment to digital banking, HDFC Bank continues to set the standard for brand leadership in India,” the Kantar report noted.

Kantar BrandZ top 10 most valuable Indian brands 2025

Nearly half (47%) of the total ranking value is concentrated in the Top 10 brands:

1. HDFC Bank: $44,988M

2. TCS: $44,233M

3. Airtel: $41,069M

4. Infosys: $25,540M

5. ICICI Bank: $20,633M

6. State Bank of India: $18,808M

7. UltraTech Cement: $14,524M

8. Jio: $14,055M

9. HCL Tech: $12,826M

10. LIC: $10,347M

This year’s Top 10 introduces a surprising entrant at No. 7, UltraTech Cement, marking not just sectoral growth but a shift in what India’s brand landscape now values.

Cement, retail and auto step forward

One of the strongest narratives emerging this year is the arrival of 18 newcomers, reflecting India’s changing consumption and infrastructure priorities. For the first time, Kantar recognised Materials/Cement as a separate category, resulting in the entry of four cement brands.

• UltraTech Cement: No.7 ($14.5B)

• Bangur Cement: No.40 ($3.1B)

• Ambuja Cement: No.65 ($2.0B)

• JK Cement: No.72 ($1.8B)

Two high-velocity retail players, Westside and Zudio, made their BrandZ debut.

• Westside: No.38 ($3.3B)

• Zudio: No.52 ($2.5B)

Automotive moves into the high-growth zone: The automotive sector is showing strong momentum in India’s consumer economy. Mahindra’s brand value surged to $5.5 billion, a 53% increase, while Hyundai made a notable entry into the Top 100 ranking. Together, these moves signal the growing brand power and high-growth potential of the automotive segment.

One of the biggest headlines is the meteoric rise of Zomato. The brand grew 69% in value, climbed 10 places to reach No. 21, and nearly doubled its valuation to $6 billion, making it the fastest riser for the second consecutive year.

India's experience economy is exploding too! Automotive and travel were two of the strongest-performing sectors again this year.

Travel brands surged:

• Taj: $2.9B (+55%)

• IndiGo: $5.1B (+42%)

• MakeMyTrip: $2.4B (+45%)

AI becomes the global battleground, and India risks falling behind

While many assume AI is now driving brand valuation shifts, Mohanty clarified an important nuance: “AI has obviously created disruption; AI has not affected the results of BrandZ. What has affected the results is the overall macro environment in India and the cooling off of investor confidence.”

But the global impact of AI on brand movement is real, and India must catch up. Graham Staplehurst offered one of the clearest assessments of the Indian tech landscape in years:

“What we’ve seen is that on a global stage, the absolute tsunami of effects that AI is bringing across all sorts of businesses is disrupting where those brands have got to… The question for those brands is: how can they adapt and bring the benefits of AI to their customers at the same rate that brands like Amazon, Google, and Meta are doing? It’s a massive global battleground, and at the moment the market’s view is that the Indian tech brands are maybe a little bit behind the curve.”

AI innovation in India: Airtel and MakeMyTrip lead the way

While Indian tech giants may not be moving as fast internationally, some brands are leading on domestic innovation:

• Airtel’s AI-driven 5G stack, secure payments and fraud detection ecosystem

• MakeMyTrip’s AI-powered travel planning and flexible ‘Farelock’ product

These are strong category-specific differentiators that keep them relevant to evolving consumer needs.