I've stumbled upon one of those list articles that are so popular on the internet - you know "Ten Best ...."; though this one is about incense companies (brands) in India: Top 10 Best Incense Sticks (Agarbatti) Brands In India. There is no criteria by which the Top 10 Best had been selected, though my assumption is that these are (among) the companies achieving highest domestic sales. Of the names on the list I know that Cycle (Ranga Rao), HEM, and Moksh, are among the most popular in India - all of them leading perfumed incense companies (perfumed incense dominates the popular Indian market - masala incense is also popular, though is regarded as premium, and tends to be sold at a premium price point). And while I recognise most of the others, there are some names I don't know, such as Patanjali Agarbatti (some now ordered) and Tataf Agarbatti. Curious about the authenticity and accuracy of this list of the "Top10 Best", I searched for similar lists, and found a few more. Most had the obvious names, and the order is largely the same in each list, with differences at the bottom of each list with a changing array of other companies, while some had no known incense companies - just a list of unknown companies, so appeared to be purely promotional, with no research having been conducted.
I thought it might be interesting to gather these lists together:
The top companies, such as Cycle, Moksh, Mangaldeep, Zed Black, HEM, Patanjali, Hari Darshan, and Nandi, succeed domestically through producing reliable, professional sticks with attractive, commercial scents at a low cost, and with good marketing and distribution. Some, such as HEM, will also succeed in exports, aiming, as with the domestic market, at an audience who are mainly looking for pleasant, everyday scents at a low cost. There are some customers who are willing to pay more for incense with scents that are less synthetic and more natural, and which are, or give the appearance of being, masala incense, and this is a growing market, which has for years been mostly dominated by Satya. Some customers look for something other than or "beyond" Satya, feeling that Satya is too "big business" or commonplace for them to identify with (and image is key in all products); so there are small, traditional companies, "artisan" or "cottage", who don't, perhaps, have the will, the desire, or the means to go into large production, and so remain small and traditional. They may wish to remain traditional, hand-rolling with as close to natural products as they can because that is their ethos and way of life, or they may feel a little trapped in the marketplace, unable to expand into synthetic and/or larger scale production without losing their existing customer base. These small, traditional producers may hope to develop a name for themselves, though many find it more economic to sell their incense in bulk to own brand or resellers, such as Happy Hari, Absolute Bliss, Prabhuji's Gifts, or Berk.
In and around these incense makers, are the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of incense companies, mostly small, but many medium sized, who aim for one or more of the existing markets - either directly under their own name, selling in their own branded packets, or in bulk stick order to a distributor, who may themselves be quite small, or may be quite large, such as Mangaldeep.
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| Top 10 Best Incense Sticks (Agarbatti) Brands In India |
This is the same Top 10 list as The Daily Records 2019 list. It seems pretty solid, though as the same names keep cropping up in the lists I wonder how much the web sites are simply copying the same list (with a little variation at the end), and how much they have done their own independent research.
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| 13 Best Agarbatti Brands in India |
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| Agarbatti Manufacturers in India [Top 10 Manufacturers] |
I've not heard of most of these companies, and the only big name is Hari Darshan, so I suspect this is a list that the companies paid to be on. The same names (though in a different order) appear on this list. I'm not going to consider this list in my analysis, and may remove it eventually; but keeping it here for the time being just to explore the companies mentioned.
An article in SMB Story, focuses on four companies who have grown big. Cycle, MDPH (Zed Black), Hari Darshan, and Chamundi Agarbathi.
The name that next appears the most as a company, though it does not appear in the individual fragrances list, is Moksh of Bangalore. Formed in 1996, and backed up by an intensive TV ad campaign, they concentrate on the domestic perfumed incense market with traditional scents. They have, as yet, little penetration in the West, though some stocks appear now and again.
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