Japanese consumers are famous (or infamous) the world over for their obsession with luxury brands -- and as hard data demonstrates, this is definitely no globalized urban myth.
Astonishingly, the Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute found that, in 2005, the luxury goods market in Japan amounted to around 1 trillion yen; while analysts at HSBC in Paris estimate that when vacationers' shopping is included, Japanese consumers may scoop up as much as 45 percent of all the luxury goods sold worldwide.
Of course, a cursory "people watch" almost anywhere in Japan would also confirm the nation's addiction to branded merchandise. However, the results of a 2003 study by the Tokyo-based Saison Research Institute show just how astonishingly compulsive this addiction is among the nation's prime consumers: women in their 20s.
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