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26 Dec 2006
Singapore
With less than a week to go before the end of the year, over half (56%) of the world’s online population has already decided on their New Year’s Resolution, with 62 percent of them promising to exercise more, and half planning a better home/work balance, according to ACNielsen, the world’s leading market research and information company.
The ACNielsen Online Consumer Opinion Survey, the largest half-yearly survey of its kind, was conducted in late October/early November, surveying 25,408 internet users in 46 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, the Baltics and Middle East.
Across the world, Latin Americans are the most likely to make a New-Year’s Resolution (71%) followed by people across Asia Pacific (65%). At the other end of the scale, 60 percent of North Americans said they had no plans to make any resolutions for next year.
Leading the world in planning to turn over a new leaf, nine in 10 Vietnamese plan to make a new-year’s resolution, followed closely by Koreans (89%) and Thais (88%). In Singapore, about half claimed to be planning their resolutions, making it amongst the bottom five countries in Asia Pacific.
“Over one in two respondents (56 percent) in Singapore are likely to make one or more New Year’s resolutions, although nearly all those who are setting their resolves, optimistically, are expecting to stick to them,” said Mr Ashok Charan, Managing Director of ACNielsen Singapore.
Most popular New-Year’s Resolutions
Besides exercising more and seeking a better work/life balance, going on a diet (32%), spending more time with family (28%), and taking up a new hobby (26%) were other popular New Year’s resolutions for consumers globally.
“People make New Year’s resolutions to make up for the things they should have done but didn’t in the past year,” Mr Charan added. “Judging by our survey findings, there is a consistent theme across the top three most popular New Year’s resolutions among Singaporeans. Striving to ‘exercise more, striking a better work/life balance, and spending more time with family’ are all designed to set us on a path to a more wholesome 2007.”
While ‘exercising more’ and ‘better work/life balance’ took the top two places for people in all regions, the order of importance for the rest of the top five New Year resolutions varied, with ‘taking up a new hobby’ ranking third for people in Asia Pacific, ahead of going on a diet and spending more time with the family; while cutting down or quitting smoking was more important to people in EMEA; and time with family came third, ahead of going on a diet or taking up a new hobby, for people in Latin America.
It’s worth noting that Asia Pacific markets took the top positions globally for most New Year’s resolution. Vietnam topped other countries with most people seeking a better work/life balance (84%), spending more time with family (54%), avoiding disastrous personal relationships (50%), and a change of job (28%); Thailand tops the world with most people planning to take up a new hobby (58%) and cut down on alcohol (18%) in the new year. Philippines has the highest proportion of people in the world resolving to exercise more (77%) while for Malaysia, it’s going on a diet (52%).
Amongst those Singaporeans who plan to make a New Year’s resolution, three-quarters (74%) resolve to ‘exercise more’, while over two-thirds (69%) are aiming for a ‘better work/life balance’ followed by one in two (48%) seeking to ‘spend more time with family’.
“It is interesting to note that Singapore ranks third globally for resolving to ‘exercise more’ and ‘spending more time with family’,” observed Mr Charan. “Living in a fast paced society such as ours, it is often a challenge for people here to balance the important aspects of life to achieve a healthy equation,” said Mr Charan.
And in Asia, while more than a third of Japanese claim plan to make a new-year resolution, 13 percent are quite clear that they won’t stick to it – Happy New Year!
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