Social media smartphone owners are more satisfied with their smartphones. The iPhone is tops in customer satisfaction, and Sanyo is the most-liked cell phone maker according to J.D. Power and
Associates. The price of the average cell phone has declined to $73, users are downloading more apps, and those who recently bought a new phone or smartphone are more satisfied.
For the fifth consecutive time, Apple ranked highest among manufacturers
of smartphones in customer satisfaction, with a score of 795 and performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system,
features, and physical design. Motorola (763) and HTC (762) follow Apple
in the smartphone rankings.
Sanyo ranked highest in overall wireless customer satisfaction, of traditional handsets, with a score of 715. Sanyo performs well in three
factors: physical design, battery functionality and operation. LG (711)
and Samsung (703) follow Sanyo in the traditional handset rankings.
The studies also found the following:
- The average price of a traditional wireless mobile phone continues
to decline and averages $73 in 2011, compared with an average of $81 at
the beginning of 2009. - 46 percent of owners reported having
received a free mobile phone when subscribing to a wireless service,
which is a historical high. - Ownership
tenure impacts overall satisfaction with the device experience. Those
who report owning their device less than one year are significantly more
likely to be more satisfied than those who have owned their wireless
phone for a longer period of time (773 vs. 728). Newer devices tend to
offer more features, services and better quality than older phones. - Two-thirds of owners say they have downloaded games and
social-networking applications to their device. - More than one-half (54%)
say they have downloaded travel software, such as maps and weather
applications, while 53 percent indicate having downloaded
entertainment-oriented applications.
Among smartphone owners who use their device to access social media
sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, satisfaction averages 783
on a 1,000-point scale - nearly 22 points higher than among those
smartphone owners who do not often use social media sites on their
device. Currently, more than one-half of smartphone owners report having
used their device to access social media sites via the mobile web or
mobile applications. While rates of mobile social media site usage are
not nearly as high among owners of traditional mobile phones (9% on
average), satisfaction among traditional handset owners who use their
device for social media is notably higher than that of traditional
handset owners who don't access social media (754 vs. 696).
"It's not unexpected that smartphone owners access social media sites
from their device more frequently than traditional mobile phone owners
due to features such as larger screens and QWERTY keyboards," said Kirk
Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and
Associates. "However, these findings demonstrate that equipping devices
with powerful features and service is key to creating positive customer
experiences with wireless devices."
The study finds that wireless users who engage in mobile social media
activity on their mobile device also tend to use it more often for
calls, texts and data; are more likely to purchase additional wireless
services in the future; and are also more likely to provide positive
recommendations for their handset brand and service provider, compared
with users who don't use social media on their device.
The 2011 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study--Volume 1
and the 2011 U.S. Wireless Traditional Mobile Phone Satisfaction
Study--Volume 1 are based on experiences reported by 7,275 smartphone
owners and 11,347 traditional mobile phone owners. The studies were
fielded between July and December 2010.