As many as four companies led by India-origin people have made it to the list of Wall Street Journal's 100 most admired multinational companies in Asia.
The list is topped by Apple, which enjoys an outsized reputation despite the fact that it has only a tiny market share in Asia, the Wall Street Journal said adding the company also gained fresh respect on account of its ability to sidestep the global economic crisis.
Technology giants hold the top positions. The top ten companies in the list are Apple, Toyota Motor, Google, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft, Walt Disney, BMW, Hewlett Packard and Coca Cola.
"Technology companies routinely rank high in our survey, Sony and Nokia are both giants in this region. Nokia, for example, has a 47 per cent market share for mobile phones in Asia," the Wall Street Journal said.
Motorola, co-led by Sanjay Jha is ranked 39th on the list, Pepsico run by Indra Nooyi secured the 40th position, Shantanu Narayen led Adobe Systems got featured in the 54th slot, while, Vikram Pandit run Citigroup is in the 60th slot.
The Wall Street Journal Asia 200 is an annual ranking of Asia's leading companies, as determined by executives and professionals throughout Asia.
A total of 2,622 executives in the 12 Asian-Pacific countries participated in the survey.
The overall rank of these top 100 multinationals that have business in at least seven Asian countries were assessed on the basis of five categories — long-term vision, quality, corporate reputation, financial reputation and innovation.
According to WSJ in terms of long term vision the top five most admired multinationals are Microsoft, Apple, Google, Toyota Motor and Walt Disney.
In terms of quality they are Sony, BMW, Canon, Nokia and Apple. In the category of corporate reputation, the top five are Toyota Motor, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, Sony and Apple.
Microsoft was ranked first in terms of financial reputation, followed by HSBC Holdings, Toyota Motor, Coca Cola and Standard Chartered.
Microsoft's popularity has plunged in line with its results, but still it is ranked at the no 1 position in terms of financial reputation.
Besides, WSJ readers also feel Microsoft's management has long-term vision, and ranked the software giant in the top position in that category.
Going by innovation, Google topped the list and was ranked ahead of Apple, Sony, Nokia and McDonald's.
Among other highlights of the survey, Panasonic Corp of Japan rose 45 places this year, to No 18, as a result of big improvements in most categories, including high-quality products and services.
