Infotech Lead India: Google is rated the most trusted Internet brand by India, followed by Facebook which ranked 2nd with a miniscule 3 percent difference, according to Brand Trust Report, India Study – 2013.
In a significant change, the number of brands represented in the Internet category this year has gone up from just 14 in 2012 to 25 this year showing a direct increase in the trust Internet based exchanges have begun to garner.
The research was conducted in 16 cities generating 19000 unique brands across 211 categories.
An analysis of the All India Most Trusted ranks shows that Google (All India rank 44) fell 13 ranks and Facebook (All India rank 48) gained 17 ranks to bridge the gap.
Yahoo still stood as the 3rd Most Trusted Internet brand despite its 62 rank fall in All India Brand Trust rank. Google’s Orkut, steadied at 4th rank despite a significant fall in daily visitors from India.
Ebay follows as India’s 5th Most Trusted Internet brand with a very small difference in BTI from the previous. The top six of last year are repeated in the same order this year as well.
“Two reasons online brands rely significantly on trust more than any other. Firstly, the exchanges are without any physical interface, and secondly, the online world is cluttered with choices that make loyalty ephemeral,” said N. Chandramouli, CEO, Trust Research Advisory.
“With most of the new brands entering the Most Trusted list this year being from Online Shopping or Internet Services, there will be no stopping this sub-category from seeing accelerated growth over the next 12 months,” Chandramouli added.
Category wise, Naukri leads in Internet Services, Youtube in Online Sharing, Ebay in Online Shopping, Google in Internet Tools and Facebook in Social Networking.
A study of the number of brands in each sub-categories shows that Internet Tools is represented by nine brands, Online Shopping by eight brands, Social Networking by four brands and Online sharing and Online Services by two brands each.
