Americans mistake Nokia for Japanese
REUTERS
Most Americans may think the world's leading mobile phone brand Nokia is Japanese, but Finns can at least take comfort in knowing that "made in Finland" is not off-putting to US consumers, a study found.
While Americans tended to recognise Sony as Japanese and 10 per cent correctly identified Ericsson as Swedish, only 3 per cent of 1,008 US citizens surveyed knew Finland to be Nokia's homeland, a study by global marketing research group Roper Starch International (RSI) found.
Sixty-three per cent of the respondents thought Nokia was a Japanese brand, and four per cent thought it was American, the survey commissioned by Finland's embassy in Washington and published by the Foreign Ministry found.
Still, 21 per cent said they saw Finnish origin as a positive thing when buying a mobile phone while under 10 per cent saw it as a drawback, the survey showed.
Finland was seen as a technology leader by about half of the respondents in the January survey, and while most knew little about the Nordic country, a vast majority knew of its cold climate and considered it a friend of the United States.
Though the study was meant to give Finland an indication of its international image, the American respondents offered a surprise by being poorly aware of their own brands. Only 58 per cent knew technology giant Motorola - Nokia's chief US rival - to be a US company.
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