Japanese products invade Indonesian households
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
While his children watch the Japanese cartoon Doraemon on a Digitec Ninja television and his wife cooks breakfast with a Toshiba magic jar, Udin, 36, washes his Honda motorcycle in front of his house in Depok, West Java.
"I love this motorcycle. It is very economical because I only have to put in two liters of gasoline every three days, while I can earn almost Rp 100,000 during that period," Udin, an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
He said if his family needed money, he would have no trouble selling his Honda quickly for a good price.
"I got a good price for my previous Honda after using it for 10 years. I used some of the money for the down payment on this motorcycle," he said.
After he sold his last Honda, a friend offered to sell him a non-Japanese motorcycle at a really cheap price. Udin turned him down.
"I do not why I have gotten so used to Japanese products. I just feel more secure with them. Japanese products never disappoint me, you know," Udin said, adding that most of his friends drove Japanese motorcycles like Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki.
Not far from Udin's house, businessman Ramli, 42, prepared his Toyota Kijang for an out-of-town trip while calling up some friends on his Sony Ericsson cellular phone.
He got some water from a Sharp refrigerator and told his wife, Putri, who was watching a show on a Sony TV in the living room, and his son, Anto, who was playing Nintendo in his bedroom, to get ready to leave.
"We are accustomed to Japanese products. When we go to an electronics store, we immediately go to the Sony or Panasonic counters. It is almost like these brands have become embedded in our minds," Ramli told the Post while turning off his Toshiba air conditioner.
Udin and Ramli are just two of millions of Indonesian people who depend on Japanese products.
In the early 1970s, needing to fill the country with affordable goods and vehicles, as well as to attract Japanese investment, the New Order government opened Indonesia to Japanese goods.
According to the Japan External Trade Organization, or JETRO, Japanese cars have a 70 percent share of Indonesia's automobile market, while Japanese motorcycles have over a 50 percent share of the market.
A quick survey of Jakarta's streets confirms these figures. Japanese cars and motorcycles such as Toyota, Honda, Daihatsu, Suzuki, Nissan and Mitsubishi fill the streets.
Vehicles from European countries, including Germany's Mercedes, BMW and Audi, are limited mainly to wealthier consumers. Other vehicles such as Ford from the U.S. and South Korean's Hyundai and KIA are still struggling to gain wide acceptance in the Indonesian market.
When Chinese-made motorcycles began appearing their low prices attracted customers for a short time, but eventually people began returning to the trusted Japanese brands.
For electronic appliances, Korean products like Samsung and LG have won a significant share of the market with their low prices and comparable quality. Cheaper Chinese products are also beginning to make inroads in the low-end market segment.
According to JETRO, however, Japanese electronic appliances still had over 50 percent of the Indonesian market in 2003.
Psychologist Mulia Moeis of the Jakarta Psychologists Association said the fact that Japanese products had been used by Indonesians for decades helped explain why these products remained so popular.
"When we are familiar with a product we tend to stick with it as long as we remain satisfied. We tend to seek security, and most Indonesians are familiar with the quality of Japanese products," he told the Post.