Creating new columns based on search criteria of exisiting columns in Python [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:

• How can i create a ruleset to assign values to specific columns, based on searching substrings, in Pandas? 1 answer

I am a complete newbie to Python (and Pandas library) and need to recreate some SQL code in it.

My task is quite simple of the face of it, I have a few columns, and i need to search them for specific strings, and if they exist then a value is placed in category columns.

I have listed an example below, however that is for illustrative purposes, in reality the list of words I will need to search will be quite large and it was suggested creating separate list with search words would be a better way to go about it.

e.g.

import pandas as pd

phone_ds= [('3UKIPHONE_CONTRACT', 968), ('IPHONESIMONLYO2123456', 155), ('3UKPAYGCDDDNEXUS', 77), , ('VODAF1234GOOGLCONTRACT', 973)]

a = pd.DataFrame(data=phone_ds, columns=['Names', 'qty'])

def f(a):
    if a['Names'].str.contains('3UK'):
        company = 'Three'
    if a['Names'].str.contains('IPHONE'):
        OS = 'iOS'
.
.
.
etc

Is there a better (more efficient) way than listing if statements?

How would i go about adding the results into new columns? e.g extra columns for Company, brand, Carrier etc etc

Thanks!