NEW YORK: Apple's iPhone remains the smartphone with the greatest appeal for shoppers in North America, a study has revealed.
ChangeWave Research, the insights provider, polled 4,073 adults in the region, and found that 54% of those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days would choose an iPhone.
While this still left the Apple-made device in a strong position, its totals had actually fallen by 11 percentage points compared to similar analysis conducted in September 2011.
Samsung, which offers a range of handsets under the Galaxy banner, had seen an increase of eight percentage points in the same period, making it the preferred brand for 13% of future buyers.
Motorola improved by two percentage points to 7%, HTC doubled its score to 6% and BlackBerry lost one percentage point on 2%.
Despite the overall decline, however, the iPhone's standing remained at the highest level since 2007, outside of the times when a new variant of the device was being introduced.
According to ChangeWave, purchase intent reached 56% for the launch of the iPhone 3G in June 2008, versus 44% when the 3GS hit store shelves in June 2009 and 52% for the iPhone 4 in June 2010.
This proportion peaked at 65% when the iPhone 4S, including innovative tools like the Siri voice-recognition software, came to market in September 2011, some 3.5 times the total for July 2007.
"A key reason for the Apple iPhone's extraordinary demand has to do with its industry leading customer satisfaction rating," the research said.
As a demonstration of this, ChangeWave discovered 75% of iPhone users are "very satisfied" with their current handset, measured against 47% for Samsung and HTC customers.
Motorola followed on 45%, trailed by LG with 31%, alongside Nokia on 23% and Research in Motion on an even more modest 22%.
When it came to operating systems, Apple's iOS again scored 75% in terms of favourable feedback, with Google Android securing 47% and Windows OS on 32%, the study added.
ChangeWave Research, the insights provider, polled 4,073 adults in the region, and found that 54% of those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days would choose an iPhone.
While this still left the Apple-made device in a strong position, its totals had actually fallen by 11 percentage points compared to similar analysis conducted in September 2011.
Samsung, which offers a range of handsets under the Galaxy banner, had seen an increase of eight percentage points in the same period, making it the preferred brand for 13% of future buyers.
Motorola improved by two percentage points to 7%, HTC doubled its score to 6% and BlackBerry lost one percentage point on 2%.
Despite the overall decline, however, the iPhone's standing remained at the highest level since 2007, outside of the times when a new variant of the device was being introduced.
According to ChangeWave, purchase intent reached 56% for the launch of the iPhone 3G in June 2008, versus 44% when the 3GS hit store shelves in June 2009 and 52% for the iPhone 4 in June 2010.
This proportion peaked at 65% when the iPhone 4S, including innovative tools like the Siri voice-recognition software, came to market in September 2011, some 3.5 times the total for July 2007.
"A key reason for the Apple iPhone's extraordinary demand has to do with its industry leading customer satisfaction rating," the research said.
As a demonstration of this, ChangeWave discovered 75% of iPhone users are "very satisfied" with their current handset, measured against 47% for Samsung and HTC customers.
Motorola followed on 45%, trailed by LG with 31%, alongside Nokia on 23% and Research in Motion on an even more modest 22%.
When it came to operating systems, Apple's iOS again scored 75% in terms of favourable feedback, with Google Android securing 47% and Windows OS on 32%, the study added.
Data sourced from ChangeWave Research; additional content by Warc staff
