Virat Kohli continues to remain India’s most valuable celebrity with $237 mn brand value

MS Dhoni dropped out of top ten this year.

Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli retained his no.1 position as the country’s most valuable celebrity for the fourth consecutive year running. His brand value is $237 million as per reports of a leading brand valuation.  

There is no change in the top 3 rankings of The Duff & Phelps’ Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2020 with Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar ($118.9 million) and Ranveer Singh ($102.9 million) retaining the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, respectively.

One big change saw actress Deepika Padukone seeing her brand value drop by 46% to $50.4 million in 2020 from $93.5 million in 2019. The top 10 celebrities’ combined brand value dropped by 4% to $785.6 million, from $818.3 million last year.

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However, the brand value of the top 3 – Kohli, Kumar, and Singh – adds up to $459.5 million, 58.5% of the top 10. Though Kohli’s brand value remained the same, that of Kumar and Singh jumped by 13.8% and 10.1% during the pandemic.

The biggest gainer was Ayushmann Khurrana, who was at 10th spot in the last year’s survey but has now moved to 6th place this year with a 19% jump in his brand value – from $40.3 million to $48 million, while MS Dhoni, has dropped out of the top 10 list this year.

“This year, the media and entertainment sector took a hit and witnessed a significant slowdown in advertising spends as traditional media and outdoor entertainment were severely impacted by the pandemic,” said Aviral Jain, managing director, Duff & Phelps.

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Ayushmann, Tiger Shroff, and Rohit Sharma all jumped a few spots to grab the No. 6, No. 15, and No. 17 spots, respectively. Kartik Aaryan debuts on the list at No. 20.

“These rising millennial celebrities were in greater demand during the pandemic owing to their popularity among the youth,” Jain added.

The survey also pointed out that this was also the first year when the total number of brands that the top 20 celebrities were endorsing, has also dropped by almost 4%. However, there was a massive jump in the social media followers of these celebrities.

(Economic Times inputs)