Westlake Village, Calif. — Apple ranks highest in customer satisfaction among smartphone users, while LG ranks highest in satisfaction among users of more traditional cellphones, J.D. Power and Associates said in releasing its 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study.
Apple ranked highest among smartphone manufacturers with a score of 791 on a 1,000-point scale, J.D. Power said. The brand performed “particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design,” the company said. LG and Samsung followed in the smartphone rankings with scores of 772 and 759, respectively.
Among traditional handsets, LG scored 733, followed by SonyEricsson with 712.
The survey measures customer satisfaction with multiple phone attributes. In traditional phones, the rankings are based 30 percent on operation, 30 percent on physical design, 20 percent on features and 20 percent on batteries. For smartphones, the rankings are based on ease of operation (30 percent), operating system (22 percent), features (21 percent), physical design (18 percent) and battery (9 percent).
The latest results were based on based on a July-December 2008 survey of 15,270 traditional mobile phone users and 2,648 smartphone users who owned their current mobile phone for less than two years.
All smartphone brands were ranked like this:
- Apple (791)
- LG (772)
- Samsung (759)
- Industry Average (751)
- HTC (744)
- RIM BlackBerry (739)
- Palm (736)
- Motorola (659)
All traditional-phone brands were ranked like this:
- LG (733)
- Sony Ericsson (712)
- Industry Average (707)
- Samsung (705)
- Motorola (697)
- Sanyo (693)
- Nokia (688)
-
Kyocera (683)
The survey also found customer satisfaction with traditional phones remained stable with the year-ago survey but satisfaction with smartphones “rose considerably,” J.D. Power said. “As consumers continuously upgrade to mobile phones that allow a full mobile-Web experience, advanced multimedia programs and 3G data downloads, overall handset satisfaction should continue to rise, as these devices tend to make our lives more convenient and prove entertaining,” said Kirk Parsons, wireless services senior director.
In other findings, J.D. Power said more than 40 percent of smartphone users replaced their landline phone with a smartphone but only 28 percent of traditional-phone users did so. Forty-two percent of traditional mobile phones owners got their phone for free after rebates and discounts, up from the year-ago 32 percent.
