'The Korean Vs. Japanese Car Market'

The Korean Vs. Japanese Car Market

By Sam Heisin at 07/10/08 23:19

A friend sent me this photo via e-mail yesterday. It was a Hyundai advertisement banner in Chicago. At first, you would hardly notice the meaning, but looking at it closely and for a couple of seconds or minutes, the big picture will come into your mind.

The banner is showing a small Korean warrior facing a gargantuan Japanese sumo wrestler. For many years now, though not obvious to many, Koreans and Japaneses are doing a silent battle over who's superior. Not to be confuse with racism, but the two are hating each other, not personally, but only for the sake of the amazing economic race, the car and technology making race.

For over a decade, we have seen how the Koreans made a tremendous improvement in their way of life and the technologies they developed. Japan on the other hand is a known technology center and products were all considered globally competitive. It is clear that as of the time being, Japan is still leading in many aspects especially in the car industry.

If you will go to Korea, you will notice their high spirit of nationality. They patronize everything Korean before praising things coming from other countries, especially if its from Japan. Korea's top car makers are Hyundai, Kia, Renault Samsung, Ssangyong - all Koreans, and trailing to the fifth place is Honda. I wonder what happened to Toyota's charm in the Korean car market. Toyota is said to have thrown out GM on its almost two decade of lead in car making putting them to no. 1 in the world. But it seems Toyota still has not touched Korea's heart since the World War II.

A Korean friend once said that you will be looked down by others if your primary car is not from Korea. And they seem proud about that. Really, it's nice to patronize your own products but at least do without any pressure.

Both of the two car giants are great. They both create world class cars. They have top of their class models and both are making cars on its highest quality. But I doubt that this racial car trend will still continue for the coming years.

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Comments

I completely agree with this article. Japan has never been seriously challenged in terms of technology face to face, until about a decade ago by Korea. Despite doubts and laughs by the rest of the world, Korea successfully knocked out Japan in Semiconductors, IT industries, and put a huge weight in other areas of technology. And We Japanese no longer take the competition lightly. If you go out in U.S street now and days, you'll actually notice lots of increased amounts of Korean cars on the road (I just had about 6 of them pass by me at the same time)And it's calling for another good fight. Japan will do everything to stay ahead Korea and rest of the world, while Korea WILL put up a good fight. It would be very interesting to me to watch these two countries fight for superiority. Japan still rocks, though =D

Who says Japan is 'ahead'? All first world countries are very competitive in technological areas. There really aren't any clear leaders in the technology markets if you look at market share and profits across the world. Japan and Korea do make some seriously awesome stuff, but to say those goods are far and away superior is wrong. So I will list the global market share leaders for different industries to make my point:

Automobiles: Toyota (Japan)

Construction Equipment: Caterpillar (USA)

Semiconductors: Intel (USA)

IT: HP (USA)

Consumer Electronics: Samsung (Korea)

Shipbuilding: Samsung (Korea)

Jet Engines: GE (USA)

Patents: IBM (USA)

Consumer Digital Cameras: Canon (Japan)

Retail: Wal-Mart (USA)

Rocketry: Soyuz (Russia)

Cell Phones: Nokia (Finland)

The list goes on like this: markets share leaders being from various places around the world. Who is number one? Probably no one.

I don't know if you can read properly or at least comprehend what the article is about.

The article is focused on the competition of the two countries alone when it comes to car making. It's not about the biggest companies in the whole world.

Going back to the first grade is still not too late darling

yaris sedan 1.3l and accent sedan 1.4l may choose accent it has a good engine built by japanese mitsubushi, body harder metal feels solid,interior and layout nicer to look at than yaris sedan, only one problem toyota exterior body shapes more mordern and attractive than accent esp the front,and hyundai is still hundai wish the name was toyota. i may still buy hyundai it costs a lot less than the over priced toyota. hyundai show the world . go go go !!!

i will go to toyota.. or mitsubishi who has made the engine for hyundai. but i will never go to hyundai

I do agree that Japan is still higher in technology than Korea. Look at the nobel prize awards; Korea recieved 1 "peace" while Japan recieved more than 10 mixing both physics and chemistry. Also Japan has Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and many many more companies while Korea still only has 1 or 2 (Samsung and LG). I think Japanese brands are more reliable and I've come to think they offer better costumer services.

Japanese cars are still better, in terms of fuel efficiency, reliability etc.

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