Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is India's most-valuable brand in 2022 replacing HDFC Bank, which held the number one spot since 2014, according to Kantar BrandZ report on India's most-valuable brands. TCS was able to grab the top slot due to rising global demand for automation and digital transformation, following the pandemic. Indian brands have bounced back from the pandemic to increase their brand value by 35 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2020.

Consumer durable companies will again start to face a supply issue of components as China extends lockdown due to its zero Covid strategy. This will impact the flow of finished products into the Indian market, unlike last year, this impact will be felt post Diwali. While supply chain issues have been a problem since the start of the pandemic, China's zero Covid strategy has also posed another risk for consumer durable companies.

Campa is set to take on its competition, which pushed it out of the aerated drinks business in the late 1990s, but this time with a new owner - Reliance Industries. Campa's entry comes at a time when aerated drinks as a category is already saturated. But experts say this could give rise to competition in the segment, eventually causing the space to grow.

At the annual general meeting of Reliance Industries earlier this week, Isha Ambani, director at Reliance Retail Ventures, announced that the company is foraying into the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space. But analysts say that only time will tell if this will lead to a disruption in India's FMCG market. While Reliance Retail's initial strategy is to take its own brands, which it currently sells at its own supermarkets and hypermarkets, to general trade, it is also looking at acquisitions.

Reliance Retail has entered the Indian fast-moving consumer goods space as it takes its private label brands, sold at its supermarkets and hypermarkets, Reliance Fresh and Reliance Smart, to general trade. The company had internally set a target of Rs 50,000 crore turnover from the FMCG business, which will fall under Reliance Retail's consumer brand division. Business Standard accessed a presentation which includes the brands it has taken to the general trade.

For record 10 years in a row, Parle Products has topped the rankings for most chosen FMGG brands, according to a report by Kantar India. It is followed by Amul, Britannia, Clinic Plus, and Tata Consumer Products in the latest 2021 report, which ranks the most chosen FMCG brands based on consumer reach points (CRPs). With a CRP score of 6,531 million, Parle holds the top spot.

Consumer-focused companies have been left with few options but to increase the prices of their products as input costs mount because of various factors, including supply chain disruptions. This has been affecting monthly household budgets. Prices of scores of items -- from spices to soaps to rice -- have increased in the past year.

Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) has expanded its pilot to 15 more cities. This comes at a time when it plans to begin operations next month. Snapdeal has also signed the onboarding agreement with the network and will debut on it next month. On Monday, ONDC expanded to Noida, Faridabad, Lucknow, Bijnor, Bhopal, Chhindwara, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Kannur, Thrissur, Udipi, Kanchipura, Pollachi, Mannar and Ramnathpuram.

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales continued to be lower in June compared to May with urban sales witnessing a steeper decline than rural. Sales of goods from shampoos to biscuits stayed lower due to inflationary pressures on commodities. This pushed consumer companies to continue taking price hikes, thus impacting demand, according to data by Bizom.

Even as raw material prices start cooling off from their peaks, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies' margins are expected to remain under pressure at least in the next quarter. This is because commodity prices continue to remain high year-on-year (YoY). Consumer companies will also continue to increase rates as they have been taking price hikes in a staggered manner. They have not yet passed the entire price increase of raw materials to consumers.

Parle Agro, which sells beverages such as Frooti in small tetra packs, has already started importing paper straws. Dabur India, which sells its fruit juices in tetra packs under the brand Real, is also considering importing paper straws.

Britannia Industries will take higher grammage cuts instead of increasing prices in a bid to tackle rising inflation, the firm said. The biscuit major took a 10 per cent price hike in financial year 2021-22 (FY22) and resorted to reducing pack sizes as an indirect way of increasing prices. In the previous financial year, the ratio of grammage reduction was 65 per cent, which will be higher in FY23.

However, rural demand continued to remain a concern for FMCG companies during the quarter.

Virat Kohli has emerged as the most valued celebrity in India for the fifth year in a row, topping the Duff & Phelps Celebrity Brand Valuation Report 2021 despite seeing a dip in his brand value to $185.7 million last year from a high of $237.7 million in 2020. The annual report explained that brand Kohli faced a decline following the cricketer's resignation from the ODI (One Day International) and T20 captaincy and "associated exchanges" with the Board of Control for Cricket in India and recent on-field outcomes. "However, we believe that with the reduced workload after stepping down from captaincy, Kohli can focus now on what he is known for - his batting - and continue his journey on becoming the world's best batsmen," it added.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) hiked prices across its portfolio of products by 3-13 per cent in multiple tranches in February, with the sharpest increase of 13 per cent seen in the 100 gm Lux soap pack, the price of which increased to Rs 35 from Rs 31 earlier. The price of the 125 gms soap pack of Lifebuoy was hiked from Rs 31 to Rs 33, a rise of 6.5 per cent. In January, the company had hiked the price of the same stock-keeping unit from Rs 29 to Rs 31.

Future Retail has shut most of its Big Bazaar stores since February 25 (Friday) and its website is also down as it missed lease payments to Reliance Industries (RIL). RIL will open most of the 200 Future Retail stores as Reliance stores in the next week and it is in the process of taking stock, re-branding, and transferring 30,000 Future Retail and Future Lifestyle employees on to the rolls of its manpower and staffing firm Reliance SMSL, according to a source. The first tranche of stores are set to be opened as early as in the next two days.

'The weekend advance booking are extremely encouraging for these movies, and the extended break due to Mahashivratri, will provide a significant impetus.'

Consumer companies have started taking orders via phone calls and are also pushing retailers to order through their B2B applications.

Offline retailers are feeling the Omicron January chill as consumers are apprehensive about venturing out in the midst of rising Covid cases across the country. Covid restrictions, as well as concerns over the new virus variant, are seeing shoppers pull back from the high streets and shopping malls, clearly cautious about streaming into stores and choosing to self-censor instead. Offline retailers' hopes of a bumper End-Of-Season Sale (EOSS) and Republic Day (R-Day) Sale to compensate for losses over the pandemic have been dashed. Fewer trips to malls mean lower footfall and sales, resulting in higher piling of stock - and possibly higher discounts.

Colgate-Palmolive India (Colgate India) on Wednesday met distributors' body to sort out the issue of price parity between the traditional trade and organised distributors, which are present offline as well as online. These companies include Jiomart, Booker, Udaan and Elastic Run. Colgate India's meeting with distributors comes after the traditional channel stopped supplying its Colgate MaxFresh range of products in Maharashtra.