Sony and Samsung named ‘tech companies with the best reputation’ by UK consumers

Sony, Samsung and Canon have beat the likes of Apple in a new poll that rates consumer tech companies’ reputations.

The RepTrak system measures a company’s ability to deliver on stakeholder expectations across the seven key rational dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance.

Companies are ranked on a score from 0-100 based on their overall reputation, and are grouped as Excellent (80+), Strong (70-79), Average (60-69), Weak (40-59) or Poor (Below 40).

The 2016 rankings for consumer technology companies operating in the UK are:

The highly competitive nature of the industry is demonstrated by the fact that there are only four points separating the top seven companies.

Kasper Ulf Nielsen, executive partner at Reputation Institute, commented: “The love affair between the UK general public and consumer technology companies continues. The focus on an ‘excellence as standard’ approach to product performance and innovation has clearly yielded substantial dividends.

“These high performing companies can gain further reputational capital and set themselves apart from competitors by developing clear and consistent narratives around responsible business behaviour.”

Sony and Samsung have demonstrated strength-in-depth in rational dimensions and have led the rankings for the last three years. Microsoft has experienced a steady incline driven by improved perceptions of Governance and Citizenship – the same two dimensions where Apple has lost ground.

Reputation Institute’s research reveals that reputation drives business results. The better the reputation, the more support a company gets.

For companies with an average reputation, only 25 per cent would definitely buy the products; this climbs to 38 per cent if the reputation is strong, but increases to 81 per cent if the reputation is excellent.

“The impact of reputation on the business is massive, which is why the leading companies in the world are managing this asset in a systematic way,” said Nielsen.

In the UK, the general public must consider consumer technology companies as “excellent” in order to have more than 80 per cent of those surveyed claim that they would say something positive about a company, recommend its products, trust it to do the right thing, welcome it into the local community, and work for or invest in it.