IIHB releases list of top South Indian celebrities

Suriya emerged as the No. 1 celebrity in South India. Allu Arjun was tops in Tollywood. Vijay trailed Suriya at No. 2 in Kollywood. Dulquer Salmaan and FahadhFaasil topped the research in Mollywood and Sandalwood.

In a research study on Human Brands in the South of India, with a sample size of 5246 respondents across the four Southern states, the IIHB has just released the TIARA South Research Report 2023. The report covers 18 celebrities from the South of India – 6 from Tollywood, 6 from Kollywood, 4 from Mollywood and 2 from Sandalwood. The report fieldwork was done in November – December 2022.

On Trustworthy, Suriya towered over the rest of competition with a TIARA score of 84. Allu Arjun and Vijay Devarakonda led in Tollywood; Vijay and Sivakarthikeyn led in Kollywood while FahadhFaasiland KicchaSudeep top scored in Mollywood and Sandalwood.

Suriya was again tops on Most Identified With. His score of 84 dwarfed Tollywood leader Prabhas (79) and Ram Charan (74), and was ahead of Kollywood’s Vijay (79) and Vijay Setupathi (77). Yash (76) and Prithviraj (72) were the leaders in Mollywood and Sandalwood.

Suriya at a score of 85 was ahead of Allu Arjun (80) and Vijay Devarakonda (72) on being South India’s Most Attractive. Vijay was No. 1 in Kollywood while Dulquer Salmaanled in the balance two states.

On South India’s most respected, Suriya was again on top with a score of 86. Mahesh Babu (78) and Junior NTR (75) led in Tollywood while Ajith (78) and Sivakarthikeyn (76) took the podium positions in Kollywood. Yash (77) was the leader in Mollywood and Sandalwood with KicchaSudeep (69) in second place.Suriya continued to dominate as South India’s Most Appealing with a score of 81, while Prabhas, Vijay and Dulquer topped Tollywood, Kollywood and the last two states.

“Suriya is like the Colossus of the South. His scores eclipse all his contemporaries and peers. None of the other Southern stars come even close to Suriya on most parameters in the research” says Dr. Sandeep Goyal, Chief Mentor of IIHB.

IIHB conducts a bi-annual research on celebrities at an all India level with a research sample in excess of 60,000 respondents. It is for the first time that the research, called TIARA (Trust, Identify, Attractive, Respect, Appeal) has been conducted exclusively to cover South India.

“The current study looks at only male stars from the South. We have not included the ladies purely because it then tends to skew the comparisons and apples can no longer be compared with apples” adds Dr. Goyal.

In the all India TIARA report, Amitabh Bachchan was India’s Most Trusted. Ayushmann Khurrana was India’s Most Identified With. Alia Bhatt top scored on India’s Most Attractive. Mr. Bachchan was again No. 1 on India’s Most Respected while Akshay Kumar was India’s Most Appealing.

In the same report, Hardik Pandya was India’s Most Controversial while Virat Kohli was rated as India’s Most Trendy and Most Handsome.

The Indian Institute of Human Brands is the premier think tank that studies, researches, analyses and ranks celebrities across movies, sports, cricket and other genres.

Interestingly, the most valued attributes in the South are Successful, Sincere, Loved By All, Rich, Reliable and High Performance. Only in Mollywood is Sincerity a bigger driver than Success.

A South centric study on female stars will be released by IIHB later in the year.