Indonesia is the country of most smiles

Wednesday July 1, 2009



Translated by Ruth Black and Robyn Elmi

London: Swedish mass media for the last few weeks have reported that Indonesia ranks first amongst nations with their people smiling the most compared to other people in other countries.An excerpt from ‘The Smiling Report 2009’ which was carried out by one of the Providers of Mystery Shoppers who are in Sweden, ranked the Swedish people at number 24, said one of the secretaries from Stockholm KBRI, Sweden, Dody Kusumonegoro to the Antara Correspondent.

In an opinion survey carried out in 2008 which included more than 2.5 million questions about smiling and greeting at sales venues in 66 countries, Sweden placed Indonesia at the top of the list. The Swedish media reported Indonesia as the country that smiled the most. This was the result of the customer service data obtained from an evaluation in Sweden which was carried out in all fields by AB Business throughout the world.

In the report it was stated that Indonesia was the nation that smiled the most, with a score of 98%. Apart from that, Indonesia was also the nation with the highest rating of ‘Greetings’, it scored 98%. Sweden was at number 24 on the list for the category ‘Smiles’ with a mark of 77% and a ranking of 31 for ‘Greetings’ with 81%. Industries which smile a lot were health and beauty, nursing and transportation, with 86%. The lowest mark was in the business services with only 52%. In the opinion survey it stated that ‘Greetings’ in the years 2008 and 2007 were recorded at 81% compared with 88% in 2004. The highest ranking in ‘Greetings’ apart from Indonesia was Hong Kong with 98%, whereas the lowest rank was held by Morocco with 48%.
The highest rate of ‘Greetings’ was found in government services with 94% whilst in business circles it was only 70%. In sales services the highest score was recorded by Pakistan with 82% and the lowest by Finland with 3%. Business services got the highest score with 65%, while the entertainment industry ranked lowest with 40%. In that report there was a big discrepancy between continents: Australia scored the highest of all continents with ‘Smiles’ at 89% and ‘Greetings’ at 92%, while Africa was the lowest with ‘Smiles’ at 61% and ‘Greetings’ at 51% ( quoted from 'Antara' News agency)