Apple is used to being at the top of customer satisfaction surveys in the U.S. In fact earlier this month they took home their seventh consecutive J.D. Power and Associates award in the smartphones category. That hasn’t always been the case for Apple with consumers outside of the United States, but for the first time Apple took a big step forward in the land of the rising sun by becoming the No.1 ranked company among consumer brands in Japan.
The announcement was made today by Nikkei BP consulting firm. Apple’s first time at the number one spot in Japan comes with an extra bonus as they were able to push Google out of the top spot. The jump is pretty impressive as Apple wasn’t even in the top ten last year. But this year they jumped from the eleven spot to the No.1 spot with a 90.5 percent “power brand” ranking.
In the corporate rankings Apple moved into the second spot behind only Toyota. The key ingredient that led to Apple becoming the No. 1 company in Japan was the iPhone 4s, which became the top selling iPhone of any kind in Japan and broke a decade long preference of locally made cell phones.
Here are the top ten brands listed below:
1. Apple, 2. Google, 3. Uniqlo, 4. Youtube, 5. Disney, 6. McDonald’s 7. Panasonic, 8. Nissan, 9. Dyson, 10. Rakuten
The study was conducted over November and December of last year and comprised of 52,000 participants, the consumer market survey consisted of 1000 companies, and the business market survey consisted of 500 companies.
