BEIJING: Local FMCG brands are growing almost twice as fast as global ones and account for the majority of shoppers' purchase decisions according to new research.

The Kantar Worldpanel's Brand Footprint study ranked the most chosen FMCG brands across over 200 FMCG categories across the beverages, food, health and beauty, homecare, alcoholic drinks, confectionery and nappies sectors. The rankings were based on its own metric of Consumer Reach Points, a combination of brand penetration and purchase frequency.

Globally, Coca-Cola, Colgate and Nescafe led the way as the most chosen brands, with Colgate taking the top spot in Asia.

The study noted, however, that while local brands generally accounted for 60% of consumer reach points, that figure rose to 69% in Asia and to over 75% in China.

Further, Asian brands had grown their reach by 3.1% in the last year compared to global brand growth of 2.6%. In China local brand growth was fastest, as their reach increased by 7.3%, compared to 5.9% for global brands operating in that country.

The top ten most chosen brands in China were all Chinese, headed by Master Kong, the food and beverage maker. Dairy brands Yili and Mengniu took second and third, followed by Want Want, another food and beverage brand, while beverage leader Wahaha completed the top five.

Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, said that the responsiveness to fast-changing consumer trends across China had been critical to the success of these brands. "They continue to grow by solving functional needs while bringing significance, and a little luxury, to people's lives beyond mere consumption," he told China Daily.

Foreign brands in China ranked below 20th place and Yu noted that they tended to have a different approach to branding.

Where domestic names had a strong parental brand, covering all product lines and sectors and so creating strong brand penetration and wide coverage, international business preferred to adopt a multi-brand strategy and avoid one brand representing everything.

Within the wider Asian region, Campaign Asia-Pacific noted that some international brands had shown "tremendous growth", including P&G's Downy fabric softener which had increased its consumer reach points score by 40%.

Other strong performers were Sunlight soap (+23%), dairy brand Yakult (+19%) and cleaning product Vim (+15%).

Data sourced from China Daily. Campaign Asia-Pacific; additional content by Warc staff