Apple is the leader for tablets in Japan as well.

and to your claim, no. its a minor player (far behind the Japanese makers). You will have a hard time finding anything with a LG logo in stores in Japan. the market is heavily skewed towards local players.

Well, you're right about Apple at least. But I don't see any local outfits ranking highly. See the stats included below.

I see Sony, made mostly of LG parts.

Is the claim then that most Japanese people don't know that their "local" phone is made by LG because the logo says Sony?

https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/japan

If you claim is that LG makes parts used in phones sold under other brands - then sure - it's present in that sense. But LG as a brand name to sell products has poor recognition / poor value perception in Japan.

Not specific to LG, from the chart. Seems like all brands, including Sony are an afterthought. (Note that LG doesn't currently sell LG branded phones. They sell to other brands.)

Following your rationale, I'd guess the top selling brand is getting backlash specifically because it's the top selling brand by a large margin. And other brands, like LG, can make "outrageous" ads without causing outrage because Japanese people either don't see or don't care about ads from brands that don't hold a majority market share.

Is that close to what you're saying? If so, is that true for other market segments? It'd be interesting to note. I don't know that I have a similar example for the US market.