The survey was conducted online in English and results compiled from January 2-18 with a total of 520 non-Chinese respondents who work and live in Mainland China. Last year, 450 respondents were part of the survey. A “non-Chinese respondent” was characterized by an individual who has held a non-Chinese passport for more than 10 years and is currently living in China on a Z-class visa for at least two years already when participating in the survey.

41% of the respondents hold European passports, down 4% from last year, from countries like United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Spain having the highest percentages; 46% hold North American passports, up 11% from last year, with the United States and Canada having the highest percentages; 11% hold Pacific Rim passports with Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong having the highest number of respondents; and the remaining respondents come from other world regions.

51% of the respondents live in Beijing, 31% live in Shanghai, and the remaining respondents live primarily in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces.

For the respondents living in Beijing, the biggest headaches they daily face are Beijing traffic, Internet connectivity, and pollution problems. 87% of the respondents say that Beijing’s traffic problems have increased since they first came to work in Beijing, up 4% from last year. 97% say that they often can not visit websites that are important for them to conduct business or complete work-related tasks, up 8% from last year. However, days before the survey was conducted, a major earthquake in Taiwan interrupted Internet service on the mainland, perhaps causing adding headaches for respondents. 87% say that Beijing’s pollution problems have stayed the same or worsened since they began working in Beijing, an increase of 15% from last year.

For respondents living in Shanghai, 32% say that Shanghai’s traffic has stayed the same or worsened since they came to work in Shanghai, down by 8%. 76% say that Shanghai’s pollution has stayed the same or worsened since they first came to the city for work, up from 72% last year.

Overall, when asked to list the biggest problems they faced in China, pollution was ranked first, followed by traffic, sanitation, noise, and crowds, respectively.

When asked to rank what they like most about the cities in which they live, expatriates living in Beijing ranked “Culture and History” first for the second year in a row, followed by “Cuisine” and “Business Opportunities”, respectively. Last year, “Schools for Children” was ranked third, but it swapped places with “Business Opportunities”, which was fourth last year.

For expatriates living in Shanghai, last year they held similar sentiments to their Beijing counterparts, but this year they had very different reasons why they liked living in Shanghai. The top reason for living in Shanghai for expatriates this year was “Environment”, which seems to contradict also some of their biggest gripes.

81% of the respondents characterize themselves as “expats” who are hired overseas to come work in China, up 8% from last year. 15% characterize themselves as “halfpats” who were already living or working in China when they were hired by their current employer.

The average annual salary for all the respondents was US$81,540, not including housing allowances or work-related bonuses. The average annual salary for those who considered themselves expats was US$88,000.

14% of the respondents say that they can conduct business negotiations in spoken Mandarin Chinese, down 4% from last year, but 65% say that they can hold a simple conversation in Mandarin with Chinese colleagues, up by 2% from last year.

Atom Survey conducted this survey as an annual marketing analysis for Xianzai.com. The respondents are all subscribers to Xianzai.com’s email newsletters. The full results are part of Xianzai.com’s materials which are distributed to clients.

For more information, please contact Atom Survey at www.atomsurvey.com.

Atom Survey and Xianzai.cn, both subsidiaries of BDL Media Ltd., today announced the results of the survey conducted online in Chinese and results compiled from January 4-15 with a total of 2400 Chinese respondents who lived in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

39% of the respondents live in Beijing, 42% live in Shanghai, and 19% currently live in Guangdong. Overall, 65% were male and 35% were female.

All of the respondents said that they had either purchased a car in the last 3 years or were planning to purchase a car in the next 6 months. 57% had purchased a car in the last 3 years, and 43% were planning to purchase a car in the next 6 months.

When seeking information online, the most important buying decisions were based on pricing (86%), color (83%) options (79%), and comparisons among different automobile makes and models (78%).

The most popular options sought were tinted windows (62%), security systems (60%), and airbags (53%).

When asked to gauge the quality of the nationalities of different car manufactures, men believed that Italian cars were the best, followed by German, American, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cars.

Results from the women showed similar beliefs in a car’s quality with Italian engineering at the top, followed by German, American, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.

But when asked what type of car they were most likely to purchase, or had purchased already, men said they were most inclined to buy domestic Chinese cars, followed by German, Japanese, American, Korean, and Italian.

Women said they were likely to purchase a German car, Chinese car, Korean, American, Japanese, or Italian cars, in that order.

For those respondents who had already purchased a car, 83% were members of the manufacturer’s automotive club and 20% were members of other automotive club.

Atom Survey conducted this survey as a marketing analysis for Xianzai.cn. The respondents are all subscribers to Xianzai.cn’s Chinese-language email newsletters. The full results are part of Xianzai.cn’s materials which are distributed to clients.

For more information, please contact Atom Survey at www.atomsurvey.com.

The survey was conducted online in English and results compiled from December 5-20 with a total of 450 non-Chinese respondents who work and live in Mainland China. A “non-Chinese respondent” was characterized by an individual who has held a non-Chinese passport for more than 10 years and is currently living in China on a Z-class visa for at least two years already when participating in the survey.

45% of the respondents hold European passports from countries like United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Germany, and Spain having the highest percentages; 35% hold North American passports with the United States and Canada having the highest percentages; 12% hold Asian passports with Singapore and Hong Kong having the highest number of respondents; and the remaining 8% of respondents come from other world regions.

55% of the respondents live in Beijing, 35% live in Shanghai, and the remaining respondents live primarily in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces.

For the respondents living in Beijing, the biggest headaches they daily face are Beijing traffic, Internet connectivity, and pollution problems. 83% of the respondents say that Beijing’s traffic problems have increased since they first came to work in Beijing. 89% say that they often can not visit websites that are important for them to conduct business or complete work-related tasks. 72% say that Beijing’s pollution problems have stayed the same or worsened since they began working in Beijing.

For respondents living in Shanghai, only 40% say that Shanghai’s traffic has stayed the same or worsened since they came to work in Shanghai. 56% say that they often can not visit websites that are important for them to conduct business or complete work-related tasks. 72% say that Shanghai’s pollution has stayed the same or worsened since they first came to the city for work.

When asked to rank what they like most about the cities in which they live, expatriates living in Beijing ranked “Culture and History” first, followed by “Cuisine” and “Schools for Children”, respectively. For expatriates living in Shanghai, there was similar sentiment.

73% of the respondents characterize themselves as “expats” who are hired overseas to come work in China. 19% characterize themselves as “halfpats” who were already living or working in China when they were hired by their current employer.

The average annual salary for all the respondents was US$78,540, not including housing allowances or work-related bonuses. The average annual salary for those who considered themselves expats was US$86,500; the average annual salary for halfpats was US$52,100. All the respondents were chosen because they hold managerial positions in their companies.

18% of the respondents say that they can conduct business negotiations in spoken Mandarin Chinese. 63% say that they can hold a simple conversation in Mandarin with Chinese colleagues.

Atom Survey conducted this survey as a quarterly marketing analysis for Xianzai.com. The respondents are all subscribers to Xianzai.com’s email newsletters. The full results are part of Xianzai.com’s materials which are distributed to clients.

For more information, please contact Atom Survey at www.atomsurvey.com.