WORLD ECONOMIC GIANTS IN THE EYES OF AFRICA: PERCEPTIONS OF AFRICAN CONSUMERS TOWARDS FOREIGN ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS ORIGINATING FROM CHINA, JAPAN AND UNITED STATES

This paper presents the results of an exploratory survey of African Consumers' Perception Regarding consumer electronics products originating from its three major trading partners-China, Japan and United States of America (U.S.A). The focus of the study is investigating the source of information in evaluating foreign products, The evaluation of the specific product cues used by African consumer in their assessment of electronic products and the ranking of the three countriesChina, Japan and USA in terms of the various product attributes. The product category selected for the study includes television sets, Refrigerators, Computers, Electric irons, and digital cameras. The products cues (Dimensions) used for the study comprised of Country of origin image (COI), Brand Familiarity (B.F), Perceived product quality (PPQ), Firms' trust (F.T), Country reputation (C.R), Economic Animosity (E.A), Perceived product price (PPP), And Product Availability (P.A). Data was collected from two hundred and seventy (270) African consumers in the city of Wuhan Hubei province; Peoples Republic of China. With the aid of statistical packages for social sciences (IBM SPSS 20 VERSION), Paired-sample T test was used to compare the mean ratings of all the eight (8) product dimensions for all the pairs of the three (3) countries. The findings showed that internet advertisement and television are the most important information sources used by African consumers in evaluating foreign electronic products, this was followed by friends' opinion and the least patronage was radio. The result also disclosed that African consumers don't consider the country of origin aspect to be their priority in the course of making foreign electronic product purchase, rather other product attributes such as quality and product brand take the precedence. Also revealed from the studies is the ranking of the three countries in terms of the eight product dimensions. It was found that, Japan having highest brand recognition (Brand familiarity), United states would boast of two things, which include high perceived product quality and country reputation. China is leading ahead in terms of cheap product price and availability of their products in almost (if not all) the nooks and crannies of African countries as perceived by African consumers. Finally, in discussing managerial implications, prescriptions were made to marketers from different countries for improving their competitiveness in the emerging African market given the present perceptions of the African consumers.