The number of brands suffering from product counterfeiting detected online has grown by 69% in 2008, according to the first Study on Counterfeiting on the Internet prepared by PriceMinister .
Among the most affected brands, those that have experienced significant growth are: Apple (+328%), Microsoft (+295%) and Nintendo (+133%). At the same time, there has been an exponential rise (+231%) of accounts detected for violating exclusive distribution networks for perfumes and cosmetics. Thus, the ranking of most imitated brands is headed by bc data india Apple, perfumes in general, and Microsoft, followed by Nike, Sony, Nokia, Playboy, Chanel, Dolce&Gabbana and Burberry. The TOP20 is as follows:
The most affected sector is fashion products (clothing, watches, perfumes and cosmetics), which account for 59% of the fraud cases detected by PriceMinister and which have grown by 13% in 2008. However, the most notable is the increase in attempted fraud in technological products (mobile phones, MP3s, software, etc.), which make up 37% of the cases and whose counterfeiting has multiplied by 170% in 2008 compared to 2007.
In 2008, the detection of accounts with fraudulent activities in the fashion and beauty sector was concentrated in four categories: clothing, perfumes and cosmetics, sports and leather goods. In this category, there was a significant growth (+63%) in blocked accounts in the “perfumes and cosmetics” sub-category. This highlights a shift in counterfeiting towards new types of products.
The fight against fraud in technological products has focused mainly on four categories: mobile phones, software, MP3 players and storage devices, including memory cards. Specifically, over the last 12 months, there has been a noticeable increase in the detection of: counterfeit mobile phones (+78%), counterfeit software (+300%) and MP3 players (+350%). The share of storage devices has remained virtually unchanged. In the mobile category, it is smartphones ( iPhone, Nokia N95, N96, 8800, LG and Blackberry) that have been most affected by fraud in 2008.