Virat Kohli tops the list of India’s most valuable celebrities

Indian captain Virat Kohli is having the best time of his career at the moment, both on and off the field. While he has hardly let supporters of his batting skills down, the peak moment of his captaincy came recently in Australia when he led India to a 2-1 victory over the hosts in a Test series – the first time ever. And now, it has been reported that the 30-year-old cricketer has also topped the list of the most valuable celebrity brand endorser in India for the second straight year.

Kohli has endorsed 24 brands as of November 2018, global valuation and corporate finance advisors Duff & Phelps revealed in its fourth edition of the report on India’s most valuable celebrity brands, Times of India (TOI) cited reports as saying. Besides, Kohli’s brand value has also seen an 18 per cent rise at Rs 1,200 crore in the year that just ended.

Kohli beats film celebs

Kohli is followed by Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone whose ranking improved from the last time with a valuation of Rs 700 crore. Deepika, who got married to actor Ranveer Singh last year, also endorsed 21 brands in November. Kohli and Deepika are the only two celebrities with a valuation of over USD 100 million (Rs 703 crore). The total value of the top 20 celebrity brands is at USD 877 million (Rs 6,173 crore).

“The celebrity endorsement market in India has matured from vanilla endorsement deals to full-fledged partnerships through innovative routes such as equity deals and strategic partnerships… Millennial celebrities continue to be the first choice for brand endorsements as companies want to have a greater focus on the youth segment fuelled by demand in sectors such as e-commerce, retail, FMCG and smartphones, among others,” Duff & Phelps Managing Director and Asia Pacific leader for valuation services Varun Gupta was quoted as saying.

The third and fourth places were held by actors Akshay Kumar and Ranveer with valuations of USD 67.3 million (Rs 473 crore) and 63 million (Rs 443 crore), respectively. Veteran actor Shah Rukh Khan slipped from the second to the fifth position with a valuation of USD 60.7 million (Rs 427 crore).

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