世論 What Japan Thinks

This is a survey from the start of March that I only got round to translating now, but the information is hopefully worth the wait! The survey was conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight in Japan, Embrain.co.ltd in South Korea, and INFO BRIDGE CHINA Co., Ltd in Japan, South Korea, and China awareness.

Demographics

Between the 29th of February and 4th of March 2008 500 Japanese, 547 South Koreans, and 524 Chinese took part in a closed internet-based questionnaire. All respondents were aged between 20 and 59, but a detailed breakdown was not provided. The Chinese respondents were from all over China, but given availability of internet access, there was perhaps a significant bias towards middle-class city dwellers in their sample.

Note that from now on I will use just Korea, but I always mean South Korea.

Q2A is interesting, in that there is a very noticable lack of pride in their own products amongst young Japanese. The reason for this disaffection would be well worth investigating - I cannot think of any particular issue that would make youths and youths only react in this way. Indeed, given the number of scandals last year involving Japanese products, foodstuffs in particular, I am very surprised that there is no real lack of pride amongst older people, although perhaps given the context of the survey, people were thinking internationally, so stale biscuits don’t really affect Japan as a global brand.

Research results

The first two questions below are executive summaries of tables below, so I’ll keep them separate as they are worth highlighting.

Q1: How trustworthy are your own country’s products and brands?

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
Extremely trustworthy	29.6%	13.5%	15.8%
Trustworthy	61.2%	73.9%	40.5%

Q2: How proud are you of your own country’s products and brands?

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
Extermely proud	18.6%	14.4%	13.7%
Proud	56.2%	69.5%	42.9%

Q2A: How proud are you of your own country’s products and brands? (Sample size=500, Japanese only, by age)

	Twenties N=111	Thirties N=137	Forties N=113	Fifties N=139
Extermely proud	16.2%	21.2%	18.6%	18.0%
Proud	50.0%	52.6%	60.2%	61.2%
Can’t say either way	19.8%	24.1%	16.8%	17.3%
Not proud	11.7%	2.2%	3.5%	2.9%
Not proud at all	1.8%	0.0%	0.9%	0.7%

Q3: What image do you have of the age of the typical citizen?

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
Japanese	45.5	38.0	39.9
Korean	33.0	34.0	32.1
Chinese	32.0	29.1	33.3

To read this chart, the columns are for the replies from each country, and the rows are the age image of each country. So, for example, the Japanese think that China has an age of 32.0 years old.

Q4A: What Japanese corporation first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Corporation	Votes	Percentage
1	Toyota	162	32.4%
2	Sony	114	22.8%
3	Matsushita (Panasonic)	45	9.0%

Q4B: What Japanese brand first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Brand	Votes	Percentage
1	Sony	48	9.6%
2	Panasonic/National	45	9.0%
3	Toyota	41	8.2%

Q4C: What Japanese product first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Product	Votes	Percentage
1	Cars	107	21.4%
2	Foodstuffs	26	5.2%
3=	Electrics, home electronics, digital	20	4.0%
3=	AQUOS (television)	20	4.0%

AQUOS is Sharp’s television brand, so I’m not sure exactly why it appears here explicitly rather than just a generic television or display panel product. It could be a misprint, of course.

Q5A: What Korean corporation first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Corporation	Votes	Percentage
1	Samsung	184	36.8%
2	Hyundai	76	15.2%
3	LG	18	3.6%

Q5B: What Korean brand first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Brand	Votes	Percentage
1	Samsung	53	10.6%
2	Hyundai	19	3.8%
3	Lotte	8	1.6%

Q5C: What Korean product first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Product	Votes	Percentage
1	Kimchi	26	5.2%
2	Cars	16	3.2%
3	LCD products	14	2.8%

Q6A: What Chinese corporation first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Corporation	Votes	Percentage
1	Tianyang Foods	31	6.2%
2	Lenovo	23	4.6%
3	Haier	9	1.8%

Q6B: What Chinese brand first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Brand	Votes	Percentage
1	Lenovo	10	2.0%
2=	Haier	3	0.6%
2=	Tsingtao Beer	3	0.6%

Q6C: What Chinese product first comes to mind? (Sample size=500, Japanese, free answer)

Rank	Product	Votes	Percentage
1	Gyoza	16	3.2%
2	Clothes	11	2.2%
3	Food and drink	7	1.4%

For Korean people on Japan, 54% chose Sony as the corporation, 14% Toyota. For brand, Sony was was out in the lead again at 25%, with the followers including Lexus, Toyota, Sony Walkman and VAIO. For Koreans on Korea, Samsung was the top corporation at 78%, and the top brand at 20%, equal with Samsung’s mobile phone brand ANYCALL. For China, Haier was top corporate and brand, at 16% and 8% respectively.

For Chinese people on Japan, 33% chose Sony and 19% Panasonic for corporations. For brands, the same two companies were on 36% and 18% respectively, with Toyota, Toshiba and Mitsubishi following on behind. For Korean corporations and brands, Samsung was chosen by the majority in both cases, with LG and Hyundai following on behind. For their own country’s corporation and brand, Chinese chose Haier and Lenovo with around 30% for both.

Q7: Do you rate Japanese products, brands in the following categories? (Multiple answer)

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
High quality	92.2%	86.5%	74.2%
Durable	79.2%	77.0%	60.9%
Popular	73.8%	79.2%	60.5%
Good service	72.0%	33.3%	33.8%
High class	66.8%	69.8%	62.2%
Good design	64.8%	76.1%	69.1%
Leading-edge	62.4%	69.3%	63.9%
Low price	5.6%	5.9%	8.0%

I suspect the actual question was along the lines of how do you rate them, with answers being great, good, bad, terrible, but for the sake of abbreviation, they totalled up the positive replies.

Q8: How do you rate your own Korean products, brands in the following categories? (Sample size=547, multiple answer)

	Extremely well	Well
High quality	10.8%	68.2%
Good service	19.0%	51.0%
Leading-edge	15.2%	48.3%
Good design	13.0%	50.3%
Popular	11.7%	50.8%
Durable	7.1%	52.8%
High class	3.7%	48.1%
Low price	1.6%	15.9%

Q9: How do you rate your own Chinese products, brands in the following categories? (Sample size=524, multiple answer)

	Extremely well	Well
Low price	20.2%	52.3%
Durable	9.9%	45.8%
Popular	7.3%	34.0%
High quality	5.7%	27.1%
Good service	5.9%	23.7%
Leading-edge	3.6%	21.0%
Good design	4.2%	18.3%
High class	3.8%	12.2%

Q10: How satisfied are you with the following economic situations? (Multiple answer)

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
Current family economic situation is good	22.8%	20.5%	49.4%
Current country economic situation is good	4.8%	6.6%	40.5%
Overall, I’m satisfied with personal and family economic lifestyle	18.8%	28.9%	40.6%
For a stable retirement, I’m building up financial, property, etc assets	21.6%	28.3%	52.5%

Q11: How do you see Japan’s future economic situation?

	Japan N=500	Korea N=547	China N=524
Exceptional improvement	0.4%	4.0%	8.2%
Improvement	8.0%	38.8%	24.0%
No change	32.8%	51.0%	50.4%
Deterioration	48.0%	5.3%	16.2%
Exceptional deterioration	10.9%	0.9%	6.1%

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