Apple tops for mobile phone satisfaction

Stephen Withers
Friday, 01 May 2009 06:12

Business IT - Technology

Apple has the highest customer satisfaction rating of all mobile phone manufacturers, according to a newly-published study.

JD Power and Associates aggregated the experiences reported by 15,270 "traditional" mobile phone users and 2648 smartphone users, and concluded that Apple and LG were the two highest-rating manufacturers.

Apple topped the smartphone list with a score of 791 out of 1000. LG ran second on 772, but also came first on the traditional handset list thanks to a score of 733.

Samsung put in a good showing with 759 for its smartphones, and Sony Ericsson was the runner up in the traditional stakes on 712.

The problem with this sort of research is that the weightings given to particular factors can skew the results.

For smartphones, the weightings were 30 percent for ease of operation, 22 percent operating system, 21 percent for features, 18 percent physical design, and 9 percent battery function.

Not surprisingly, Apple outscored its competitors on physical design - there wouldn't be too many arguments there. But it also achieved a top score for features, despite the iPhone's low-res, still-only camera.

That's because 'features' covers the "toggle or navigation wheel, touch screen, stylus, and calendar... [and] the quality of multimedia capabilities and quality of video."

And the low weighting given to battery function probably helped Apple too, as it (along with Motorola) got the lowest scores in this area.

Still, Apple's scores were "among the best" in all aspects except that one.

For regular phones, the weightings were 30 percent operation, 30 percent physical design, 20 percent features, and 20 percent battery function.

LG almost managed a clean sweep of "among the best" ratings, slipping to "better than most" for features. The only other manufacturer to achieve an "among the best" was Sony Ericsson for features - the highlight among otherwise "about average" ratings for its products.

If smartphone owners are more satisfied than those with regular handsets, why don't more of the latter group upgrade? Find out on page 2.