ChangeWave: Apple iPhone maintains big lead in customer satisfaction; top choice among likely buyers

“Record numbers of consumers are abandoning their basic cell phones for more-advanced models, according to the latest ChangeWave consumer cell phone survey. The January survey of 4,182 consumers tracked key market share changes affecting cell phone manufacturers and service providers alike,” Paul Carton and Jim Woods report for ChangeWave.

“Research In Motion and Apple appear to be the primary beneficiaries of the seismic shift toward more-advanced cell phones. Looking ahead, the Apple iPhone is now the top choice among respondents planning to buy a new cell phone in the next six months (up one point to 17%), but second-place RIM has the most momentum (up three points to 15%),” Carton and Woods report.

“On the downside, one-time market dominator Motorola (MOT) has declined another four points [11% of alliance members plan to buy a Motorola cell phone in the next 6 months] in terms of future planned purchases, continuing a monstrous slide that began immediately after Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ initial announcement regarding the iPhone,” Carton and Woods report.

MacDailyNews Note: May 10, 2007, Motorola Chairman (until May) and then-CEO Ed Zander said his company was ready for competition from Apple’s iPhone, due out the following month. “How do you deal with that?” Zander was asked at the Software 2007 conference Wednesday in Santa Clara, Calif. Zander quickly retorted, “How do they deal with us?”IDG News Service

Carton and Woods continue, “Apple also maintained its big industry lead in customer satisfaction compared with the other major manufacturers: 72% of respondents having reported that they are very satisfied with their iPhone. RIM is a strong second with 55% having said that they are very satisfied. To put this in context, the following chart shows the percentage of respondents who said they are very satisfied with their current cell phone, broken out by manufacturer.”

As we’ve seen in our recent consumer surveys, Palm now ranks at the very bottom in terms of customer satisfaction. And Motorola, Sony (SNE)/Ericsson (ERIC) and Samsung are tied for next-to-last place.

MacDailyNews Note: Palm CEO Ed Colligan, commenting on then-rumored Apple iPhone, Nov. 16, 2006We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.

More in the full article here.

9 Comments

  1. See, I think this overlooks the fact that it has a touchscreen and not a buttony QWERTY keyboard. And no 3G. And it’s on AT&T;!
    Analysts and retarded bloggers will tell you that Apple really made huge mistakes there – consumers CANNOT be satisfied.

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