Jio Breaking into this Elite List of Top 100 Global Brands
A new report, BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019, by WPP-owned Kantar, makes a special mention of the three year old startup — Jio — which doesn’t yet feature on the list. This mention is notable as it shows that even though the brand hasn’t broken into the elite list yet, its outright disruptive power has made the global elite sit up and take note. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Jio grow in the rankings over the next few years. Here’s why.
Since its launch in 2013, Jio has taken the Indian telecom market by storm. The company introduced the country to a world of affordable high speed data, forever changing consumption patterns. Even as the country’s economy faces serious headwinds as evidenced by the goings on in the automobile and real estate sector, there is one category where demand doesn’t seem to have reached a ceiling — and that’s mobile phones. You can largely thank Jio for this.
The ability to do more with data has fuelled not just content consumption in the country, but also the imagination of over a billion Indians. Jio has scrambled to grow its market share and become the most preferred company in the telecom sector, capturing over 33% of the segment. It is also the only telecom company to remain profitable even as legacy players scramble to alter strategies in the face of this innovative upstart.
Jio’s rise is anything but normal. There are currently only two Indian companies on this list of the most valuable global brands — Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) which is ranked 68th and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which is ranked 97th. Both these companies have strong legacies built over a number of years. Many other Indian entities such as the Aditya Birla Group, Mahindra and Mahindra, etc. have built global businesses, but still not received as much global acclaim. With their roll-out plans for fiber optic internet connections underway, Jio is not even halfway done. The company, with a user base of nearly 350 million, has ambitions to connect over 500 million Indians in the next two years.
In addition, the company has invested heavily in the content ecosystem in the spheres of music, television, and movies. They have also invested in other areas like gaming, virtual and augmented reality, home security, and more. All in all, while the company started its journey as a mobile telecom operator, it clearly has ambitions to be a huge player in the mass technology field. This is where their next wave of disruption lies.
Jio is no longer an unknown commodity. Earlier, its ambitions were yet to be backed by execution. Now, with three years of proving its mettle with solid execution, the company is poised to disrupt much more than any other in India, perhaps even in the world, in the last decade.
It’s not just Jio that we can expect to make a mark on the global stage. Increasingly, Indian companies have demonstrated an ambition to compete at a global scale. Oyo, the disruptive hotel startup founded by 25 year old Ritesh Agarwal has, through a mix of acquisitions and organic growth, seen a tremendous inventory addition across China, Europe and the United States. Ride hailing firm, Ola is taking on Uber in not just India, but the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. Zoho’s enterprise suite is taking on Microsoft and Google in the enterprise sector with compelling world class products at great price points.
So we’d better get used to seeing Indian brands muscling its way into the upper echelons of this list over the next few years. The 15 Chinese brands on this list are soon going to have more than just the 3 Indian brands for company in the next few years.
