TWO household-name Singapore brands have come out tops in recent surveys.

A study of global postal-industry performance by management consulting giant Accenture found local postal agency SingPost tops in the world, ahead of United Parcel Service (UPS), followed by the Austrian, Italian and Australian postal services.

Accenture lauded the agency for diversifying its business, launching new products, and taking advantage of e-commerce trends, even as many postal agencies around the world struggle with declining mail volume and rising employee pension costs.

Meanwhile, local supermarket chain NTUC FairPrice was named the best of five South-east Asian brands in international brand consultancy Interbrand's survey of the Best Retail Brands 2013, ahead of Malaysian department store Parkson, its Filipino counterpart SM Department Stores, Indonesia's Matahari department store and Thailand's Big C hypermarket chain.

While Asia-Pacific firms, mainly from Japan, China, and Australia, have been ranked in the previous four years the survey has been conducted, this year was the first time South-East Asian firms were ranked.

They were assigned a 'brand value' based on how well they respond to customers' changing needs, how efficiently they make decisions and how they provide customers with an experience that goes beyond physical stores - for example, in customer service.