Indian Markets In Sniffing Distance Of All-Time Highs Again
The benchmark Sensex has closed above the 85,000 mark for the first time in nearly 14 months
On Episode 730 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Pawan Kumar, President at the Seafood Exporters Association of India as well as Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director and Chief Solutions Officer, South Asia at Kantar and Graham Staplehurst, Director at Kantar BrandZ.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) The Take: Finding Mechanics
(04:21) Indian markets in sniffing distance of all-time highs again, Sensex crossing 85,000 after 14 months
(05:56) Oil India announces strategic collaboration with Total Energies of France for exploration: the IEW Segment
(07:55) India’s seafood exporters are putting up a fight, with some help from the Government
(16:46) India’s most valuable brand is..
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NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning, it's Thursday, the 20th of November, and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital,
The Take: Finding The Mechanics
Ford Motor CEO, Jim Farley, told a podcast in the United States last week that he couldn't find enough skilled mechanics to run his auto plants.
Specifically, Ford can't fill 5,000 mechanic jobs that pay $120,000 per year. He said that, we are in trouble in our country, we're not talking about this enough. The Wall Street Journal reported him saying that we have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and tradesmen.
And he said that Ford is struggling to hire mechanics at salaries that Ivy League graduates might envy. The problem was thus not limited to the automotive sector. Elsewhere, Elon Musk, who is reportedly back to being buddies with President Donald Trump, weighed in as well.
America has a major shortage of people who can do challenging physical work or who even wish to train to do so. The same posts were picked up in India as well, predictably they were either commiserated with or attacked, including with some saying that they were willing to do any jobs, but not getting them, particularly in the United States. Now the problem is obviously more nuanced and interestingly was summed up by US President Donald Trump himself in a somewhat rare moment of candour.
He told a Fox News interviewer last week, you can't pull people out of employment lines and make them produce missiles. Translated, just because a job involves manual labour does not mean you have the specialised skills to do it. Alternatively, you have to develop the skills before you can pitch for high-skilled roles like this.
And he of course was referring to H-1B visas and the need to have them. The Wall Street Journal also quoted Rich Garrity, a National Association of Manufacturers board member, saying much of the crisis could be attributed to a skillset deficit due to a lack of concrete foundational training courses available for students in the country's educational system. We're not just missing bodies.
What we're really missing is skillsets that can connect to 21st century manufacturing needs. The community colleges, the career tech programmes do a solid job in providing foundational training, but we often see that they're out of date when it comes to keeping up with how fast things are moving from a technology standpoint, he told the New York Post. Now, India also produces about a million and a half or 1.5 million engineering graduates annually.
Only about 10% of these engineers can get a job according to several research reports in recent years. The major reason is the skills gap amongst these engineering graduates. Worse, most engineers have gravitated towards IT jobs, which are obviously less punishing than the shop floor of a steel factory or a power plant.
Many engineering company leaders I speak to regularly complain that they're unable to find the right skilled engineers who can be taken to shop floors or even construction sites. Now, the market is forcing a shift here with information technology services jobs hiring slowing down and many IT companies also downsizing as we've been seeing in recent months and year. Now, artificial intelligence can and perhaps is accelerating this shift.
But the first choice for many youth may not be traditional engineering jobs, however desperate the situation might be. When I say traditional, I mean more traditional manufacturing kind of jobs. Even for those who are not engineers, they would prefer to study and take up a government job.
Now, the challenge and opportunity is to make such physical jobs more attractive and also make workplaces happier and friendlier even as we step up training additionally via internships. Now, all of this is of course happening, but the examples are few and only seen more in big companies. The challenge at least for some time will not be so much the jobs, but employability.
More importantly, like in the US, the compensation is steadily rising for these jobs. And that's one of the key lessons for us to take back from this episode.
And that brings us to the top stories and themes…
Indian markets are in sniffing distance of all time highs. Again, the Sensex crosses 85,000 after 14 months.
India's seafood exporters are putting up a fight with some help from the government.
Oil India announces a strategic collaboration with Total Oil Energies of France for exploration. The India Energy Week segment kicks off.
And India's most valuable brand is…
Close To All Time Highs
The markets are back to sniffing distance of an all time high last seen in September 2024. The Nifty and Sensex are actually within 1% of their all time highs. More specifically, the benchmark Sensex has closed above the 85,000 mark for the first time in nearly 14 months.
The Sensex closed 514 points up at 85,187. And this is the highest low since September 27, 2024. The Nifty was up 143 points to close at 26,053.
And both indices, like we said, are very close to lifetime highs, which we thought will be hit about a week or 10 days ago, but that did not happen then. And we're closer now. In the broader markets, the Nifty Mid Cap 100 Index was up 0.2%. And the Nifty Small Cap Index was down 0.4%. Analysts told Reuters that India is likely attracting incremental foreign flows as global sentiment softens on concerns around stretched valuations in artificial intelligence linked stocks.
They also said that they are seeing a resurgence in equity markets driven by strong festive consumption, stabilising earnings, and a revival in foreign investor appetite. Elsewhere, the rupee closed nearly unchanged on Wednesday and ended the session at 88.58 rupees against the US dollar, up marginally from its close of 88.60 rupees in the previous session.
Oil India Strikes A Partnership
Oil India Limited, India's second largest oil and gas producer announced on Wednesday a strategic collaboration with France's Total Energies to explore opportunities in the deep and ultra deep water offshore regions of India's sedimentary basins, including the drilling of stratigraphic wells.
The company said that Total Energies will provide technological services to support exploration activities in oil's current and future offshore portfolio. And this includes the ongoing appraisal programme for a gas discovery in shallow offshore blocks in the Andaman Basin, as well as exploration in oil's OALP-9 ultra deep water blocks in the Mahanadi and Krishna Godavari basins, according to a report in the New Indian Express. ONGC, that's the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation had collaborated earlier with BP for exploration in the Mumbai high fields.
Both oil and ONGC have been actively looking for hydrocarbon reserves in the Andaman Sea and looking to find discoveries which will obviously and hopefully reduce India's reliance on imports for energy needs. India imports about 88% of its crude oil requirements and 50% of its natural gas requirements. Elsewhere, oil prices are swinging between Russian supply fears against forecasts that there is a glut on the horizon as we've been discussing here.
After Ukraine's attacks on Russian energy and port infrastructure, profit margins on diesel fuel jumped in Europe, reaching the highest since September 2023, amidst an increase in refinery margins globally, according to Reuters. On Wednesday, prices were however down thanks to high crude inventories in the United States, reinforcing oversupply concerns. Brent crude futures were down to $64.18 after gaining slightly in the previous session.
Seafood Exports
India's seafood export stocks jumped close to 11% on Wednesday following a media report that China had notified Japan of plans to suspend imports from that country following a diplomatic impasse between the two of them. And that could lead to some demand coming into suppliers from India, according to Reuters. A potential rise in Chinese demand could help Indian seafood exporters who are against the wall thanks to that 50% plus tariffs imposed by the United States, which is a roughly $3 billion market for India with clients ranging from the big retailers like Walmart and Kroger.
Total seafood exports from India globally last year stood at about $7.4 billion with shrimp accounting for 40%. Last week, India also approved a spending package of about 45,000 crore rupees to support exporters in labour-intensive sectors like seafood, textiles, jewellery, and seafoods include shrimp. I reached out to Pawan Kumar, National President of the Seafood Exporters Association of India, and I began by asking him to walk us through how things were presently and how the industry was coping.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Pawan Kumar G: Yes, we did get a shock when the tariffs were increased from 45 to 50 percent. Initially, you know, we were rushing to push the shipments because the deadline was 16th of September. But we didn't have much time to get some of the shipments out.
But having said that, yeah, there was a dip on the exports to the US. In fact, a big drop. Some of the buyers, like the retail outlets and food services, they came back.
They only refilled themselves to an extent where they might find some shortage in the coming months. But that was not substantial. What we have seen is a dip in the September month, October month, and November also, we are seeing a dip in the exports to the United States.
But having said that, the Government of India and Ministry of Commerce under the Prime Ministership done a tremendous job. Some of the units for EU have not been approved for a long time. They've been waiting for six, seven years, which they have quickly opened up and they approved all the 102 units for exports to Europe.
The UK FDA also came in at the right time. And our exporters, they tried to find more markets, alternate markets like UK and EU. The Commerce Ministry and the Finance Ministry, both of them, they reached out to us.
They just wanted to find out what is the impact and what is it they can do to guide us through this. I will not say a crisis, the challenge is what we have. Of course, it's not easy to find an alternate market that soon, because US is almost a $3 billion market as far as seafood is concerned.
Finding an alternate market for $3 billion is not that easy. But yes, wherever possible, the government has come in and they try to open up new markets for us. In that EU is one, Russia is in the making now.
What has been pending for the last two, three years, they have speeded up the process and they're trying to open up or get more and more units approved for the Russian market. So these are the two major markets which worked really hard and Russia is still a work in progress. When it comes to EU, markets are open.
But once the FDA is in place, probably the tariffs on India, which is about 12% might further come down to zero. That'll really help. And I think EU FDA, I heard is almost close to signing a deal with EU.
So these are a few things which have happened in the last couple of months.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Is it completely down to zero into the United States now? Or is it, for example, more higher value added products that are going through? Essentially, what are the shifts within the shipments that are happening right now?
Pawan Kumar G: I will not say the shipments to US have come down to zero, even in September or October, even now, but they've come down quite drastically. I would say only 20% or 25% of the shipments are going or even less than that. That's a big drop.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Tell us a little bit about how exporters are coping right now, mostly Andhra, but elsewhere in the country as well.
Pawan Kumar G: Let me give you a preamble before I answer that question. As soon as the tariffs hit and one thing as an association, what we have done, we've called all the exporters for a virtual meet. We have told them three things.
One, don't reduce the price for raw material because we don't want the farmers to suffer. Two, don't stop buying raw material because if you stop, again, that creates some sort of a social imbalance and a social unrest among the farmers. That's not a good thing to happen.
What will happen is a farmer will not stock. That will create a big vacuum in the coming months. The third thing what we've done, don't be desperate to sell at lower prices to other markets.
These are three things which we advised our exporters. I'm proud that all the exporters have followed that decision what the association has taken. They've not reduced the raw material price.
They have not stopped purchases of raw material. They have not reduced the price in the international market to sell at cheaper prices. I would say it's a kind of a hand-holding which we have done to the farmers.
We have told the government the same thing. We have done this and we want you to do the hand-holding for us also. This is what we have done initially with all the farmers and the fishermen.
I would say that really helped not to create any sort of a social imbalance or unrest among the farmers. That has given the farmers a little bit of confidence that these exporters are trying to find markets. We have worked very closely with the commerce ministry to find solutions so that we can open up markets.
In the process, what happened was certain inventories had to be blocked. We had to sit on certain inventories which we said that's not a problem. We went to the government and said, see we are sitting on inventories.
Probably our cash flow is getting tighter. If you can help us to tide over this crisis or the challenges, we will find markets. It will take some time to find new markets and sell these goods in those markets.
Govindraj Ethiraj: I know you touched upon this but what specifically has the government done in the last three months that has helped the industry?
Pawan Kumar G: Of course, they've been engaging with us very very closely. In fact, the commerce ministry and the finance ministry has called us for three or four meetings. They did ask us what is that you want.
So, we had told them three things. One, we said if you can work something like an interest subvention with the existing bankers, that will help us. Two, we have told them we need a moratorium because the shipments are not going as fast as it was happening previously.
And the third thing we said, give us some soft loan, 20% or 30% of our working capital so that we don't stop purchases of raw material. And whatever inventories we are holding, we can liquidate them slowly. So, the government announced all the three requests what we have made.
It is in the process or it's in the pipeline. Probably next week you should get all the notifications. Whatever the government has announced, it should come into place from next week.
Govindraj Ethiraj: This is of course something that is beyond, let's say, the control of either the government of India or the seafood exporters. What's your sense on the US side? Because they've already opened up some agricultural products and other products, food products, and because obviously prices were rising.
So, are you hopeful that something might happen on the seafood side as well?
Pawan Kumar G: Frankly, we are waiting, but the government will not sign a free bilateral trade agreement till all the clauses in the agreements are addressed, which we support the government because we don't want half the trade agreement between both countries. And tomorrow, you should not go back to the negotiation table again and again. So, now that the government has given us some sort of support, of course, bilateral trade agreement or the issue is sorted out, it's even better.
But we are hopeful in the next three to six weeks, we'll have some good news is what we expect. One thing is clear from the government side and what we've told the government also, they will not sign till all the impediments in the agreement are addressed by the US side. And it should be a win-win situation for both the countries.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So, I think we've spoken about what the government here in India is doing. What is the sense that you're getting from your importing parties in the US or importers in the US? Are they facing, let's say, higher demand or how are they coping with demand and the fact that prices have risen?
What is the kind of sense that you're getting from that side?
Pawan Kumar G: What we heard is because of these tariffs, the importers are also facing a lot of challenges because higher the prices, because this becomes a high value item, the sales there also seems to be sluggish. Some of the importers like Walmart and all these people are reporting about 25% drop in the sales, which is not a good news. And now, October, November, all the high-priced inventories are reaching the US.
We need to see how the holiday demand is going to come up. In the holiday season, the first one comes up is the Thanksgiving weekend, which is sometime next week. So, we'll have to see whether the offtake in the US is going to be the same thing.
More or less, they're expecting a drop in the demand because of high prices.
Govindraj Ethiraj: To that extent, they've not been able to make up for the gap in imports from India. Is that right?
Pawan Kumar G: They did from other countries like Ecuador and Indonesia, because the tariffs of Ecuador and Indonesia are much lower than India. Ecuador is about 15% and Indonesia is 19%. They wanted to do that, but what happened is those countries, they know India cannot sell to the US.
They also have jacked up their sale prices to the US. Right.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And in terms of absolute numbers and this thing, you're saying these countries are able to fill up the gap?
Pawan Kumar G: Not completely, but yes, to a certain extent.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Pawan, that's very useful. Thank you so much for joining me.
Pawan Kumar G: Thanks.
India's Most Valuable Brands
India's top 100 most valuable Indian brands have reached a combined value of about $523 billion in 2025, accounting for about 13% of the country's GDP, according to a report from Kantar Brands. The year's ranking has expanded to include 100 brands with total brand value rising 6% on year and 34 brands increasing their value. Now, HDFC Bank continues to be India's most valuable brand, up 18% to nearly $45 billion.
The first Brands India report was released in 2014. The other five include Tata Consultancy Services at two, Airtel, three, Infosys, four, and ICICI Bank, five. The top 10 most valuable brands represent about 47% of the ranking's total value.
Now, Kantar is a marketing data and analytics business and brand partner to leading companies, while Kantar Brand Z is positioned as a global currency when assessing brand value, quantifying contribution of brands to business financial performance. Since 1998, Kantar Says Brands has shared brand-building insights with business leaders based on interviews with 4.5 million consumers for 22,000 brands in 54 markets. I spoke with Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director and Chief Solutions Officer, South Asia, for Kantar and Graham Staplehurst, Director, Kantar Brands.
I began by asking them how they selected the top brands and what made up a top brand in their ranking.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Soumya Mohanty: So, BrandZ is in its 20th year in India. So, it's a flagship event that we do, flagship property that we have. The way we do it is we combine two measures.
It's the world's only brand valuation that combines two different measures. One is financial value and the other is brand contribution. Financial value in simple terms is you take the enterprise value and you attribute the part of the enterprise value that can be attributable to the brand and you strip the rest of it out of it.
The second part is brand contribution, which is essentially the perceptions that allow a brand to be able to make the consumer buy more and pay more. So, there is a brand equity component to it as a financial component to it and both are added together to create brand value. We've been doing it for 20 years.
We have just published the first top 100. We normally do top 75 and globally, we do top 100 and we released the report, I think, around May, if I'm not wrong. And India, we are going to release it in a couple of days.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. What is the fundamental difference between previous years and this year, if any, including the kind of companies that have come into the list?
Soumya Mohanty: So, first, from India's standpoint, we have expanded from top 75 to top 100. So, which has automatically meant that there are a couple of new categories. One is materials, which is cement.
So, all the four cement brands have come in and we have logistics. So, one logistic brand, Ecart has come in. Other than that, many brands, many other smaller brands have also come in, which were not there because we had 75 brands.
But if you broadly say the like on a like to like basis, the composition is not very different. Our top 10 are pretty similar, pretty consistent from a many number of years. This year, Ultratrek has entered the top 10, Asian Paints has got displaced, but otherwise, it's pretty similar.
HDFC was always our consistent number one, it has remained so.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And this is not a survey based finding, right? Is it entirely your own objective quantitative?
Soumya Mohanty: It combines consumer perceptions, which is survey based with financial valuation, which is a financial value of the brand. So, it combines the two, it's the only valuation that combines the two.
Govindraj Ethiraj: You have Infosys, which is, let's say a company that is not really or actually not at all seen in the consumer space. I mean, people may know about it, but it's not a consumer brand. And you have Cement, which is less of a consumer brand in that but they obviously advertise a lot and therefore are seen along with other brands.
So, how do they all come together?
Graham Staplehurst: The survey work spans both business to business and business to consumer brands, D to Z brands, traditionally distributed brands and digital brands. In the top 100, for example, in global this year, we saw GPT enter for the first time. So, lots of things, yes, change, but even if I'm a business decision maker, I will be shortlisting brands for my company to maybe tender from.
I will still be using the associations that I have about those brands to influence those sorts of decisions. And even when a tender is made, there are qualitative considerations for anything that I will be choosing. So, brand is very important and makes up around one third of the total enterprise value of the top 100 brands, for example.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And when you look at other similar lists elsewhere in the world, including the global, is it a similar mix of B2B or commodity brands like Cement in this case in India, or does India follow a path that's similar to elsewhere in the world?
Graham Staplehurst: There are a lot of similarities, for example, in financial services, banks, large banking businesses and large banking brands often feature at the top of many of the national rankings that we do around the world. But there are quite significant differences as well in India. And for example, that tech sector that you mentioned, the B2B tech sector is very strong here, whereas consumer tech brands, the direct-to-consumer digital brands are less prominent.
And that perhaps is an area that is still developing in India and presents a very large opportunity.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what do brands typically do, not consciously because they want to rise on this list, but in general to, let's say, be seen and be recognised as a valuable brand?
Soumya Mohanty: So, I think there are two things. One is, exactly to your point, not to be on this list, but to generally sustain and thrive in an uncertain environment. Our advice is you invest in building consumer equity.
By consumer, it would be a business consumer as well, but build equity and remain invested in building equity. And the way Cantor measures equity or Cantor's proprietary equity framework are simple three measures, which is you need to be meaningful, which means relevant, meet my needs. Relevance means you're meeting my needs and your emotional connection with me.
You need to be differentiated or different is what we call it, which means that you are seen different from others in your category. And finally, you need to come easily to the mind. You need to be salient.
So, if you are all the three, then your chance of surviving in the list and thriving in the list are way higher. So, 78% of the brands that are meaningful and different from 2019 to now have survived in the list.
Graham Staplehurst: This comes back to how businesses set objectives for themselves. And what we are seeing is that brand equity is not something that is just an intangible, something that you could measure in a survey and has no relevance to business. It absolutely has core relevance to business because when we talk about how brands grow, the most important thing for businesses to think about is shareholder returns.
And we have demonstrated over the years that you get increased shareholder returns and you grow the value of your brand as a core asset in your business and therefore the value of the business overall by investing in building brand equity. So, you talk to consumers, but the financial outcome tends to come actually through the financials of the business itself.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. When I look at the list, I mean, I can sense that ad spend or advertising spend by a brand is not going to make them the most valuable brand, but it would be useful to know how you calculate it. And in a way, it goes back to my first question as well.
And is there a deflator of some sort that, you know, just because a brand outspends everyone else by 10x or 20x, that doesn't necessarily make them the most valuable brand?
Soumya Mohanty: We measure perceptions. So, we measure the final outcome in a way. So, what is the equity that you're creating in the mind?
Advertising is just one of the routes to create the equity. There are multiple ways in which you can create consumer equity and there are multiple touch points through which you are doing it today. So, there is no deflator.
We don't apply anything. What we measure is how the consumer is perceiving the brand and how the markets are perceiving the brand. And we add the two and that is what is the final outcome.
So, if advertising is not leading to better brand equity, then there are many other ways to build brand equity and advertising needs to be relooked at in its role in building brand equity.
Graham Staplehurst: Brand experience. So, you're getting people to try your brand and actually experience what your brand is like. That tends to be a much bigger driver of successful equity outcomes and hence brand growth than simply just advertising.
Advertising is a very weak persuader. Experience is the thing that tells people I can trust this brand. I'll buy it again and again.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Finally, the categories that you have now in the top 10 in India, for example, is banks, they're telecom companies and now cement companies and banks and insurance companies. Do you see any other category entering this?
And of course, there's e-commerce which is leading. Is there any other category that could potentially lead this or enter this in coming days?
Soumya Mohanty: I would place my bets on automotive if it stays in the kind of trajectory it is now at, but it will need significant innovation, especially in EVs and consumer tech for sure. I mean, as Rahim is saying across the world, consumer tech brands are the ones which are dominating at least our global lists, but they are quite far away right now because they do not have the mega platforms. So, I do hope there is the consumer tech platform brands that are able to grow bigger than they are today.
Those are the two I would place my bets on.
Graham Staplehurst: The opportunity in automotive is definitely there. We've seen this year for the first time BYD, the Chinese EV brand, coming into the top 10 most valuable automotive brands globally. And that really signals the opportunity that is there.
But almost any sector shows potential. And again, we can look to examples from China, from South America and other countries around the world to see how brands have been successful. Another great example is Mercado Libre, which was an Argentine-based e-commerce brand that has now come to dominate the region and again has made the global top 100.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Great. Soumya and Graham, thank you so much for joining me.
