Rediff

New Delhi, Jul 11: IT majors Infosys, TCS and Wipro have emerged as the three most admired companies in India, followed by Sunil Mittal-led telecom giant Bharti Airtel and another Tata group company Tata Steel in the top five, according to a list prepared by the Wall Street Journal Asia.

However, Bharti Airtel and the country's biggest private sector lender ICICI Bank have scored over the IT majors in terms of innovation with their top two positions, found a survey of Wall Street Journal Asia readers.

As part of compilation of a broader list of 200 most admired companies in Asia, the publication released on Friday the list of 10 most admired companies as well as top 10 innovators in India.

In the most admired list, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Bharti Airtel and Tata Steel are followed by Larsen & Toubro, ITC, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank and Mahindra and Mahindra to round up the top 10 companies.

For innovation, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank are followed by Infosys, TCS and HCL Technologies in the top five.

These are followed by Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications, Wipro, Satyam, M&M and Hindustan Lever (now known as Hindustan Unilever in the order of their rankings.

"Bharti Airtel ranked most-innovative in responding to customers' needs, the featured category in the latest Journal survey to determine Asia's 200 most-admired companies. That helped it earn a spot on the list of overall-most-admired in India," the WSJ said in a report.

In the overall list, Infosys has retained its position as the most admired company since 2000, while TCS has also retained its second position since 2006 survey. Wipro has moved up one position from fourth in the previous 2006 survey.