ChangeWave Research on Monday announced the results of a new survey of 4,000 North American consumers that found “explosive momentum” for Apple in 2012. Among the data points was the finding that 54 percent of those planning to buy a new smartphone in the next 90 days will choose an iPhone, a level of buying strength that ChangeWave has not seen more than two months after a new iPhone release.
Apple’s historical trend line
Planned buying, all vendors
The iPhone also scored well in customer satisfaction: 75 percent of respondents said they were very satisfied with their iPhone and another 75 percent said they were very satisfied with iOS; both metrics led all vendors by a wide margin.
Customer satisfaction by vendor
Customer satisfaction by OS
ChangeWave found that Samsung is also seeing strength in the handset market, thanks to its wide array of Android-based phones, while Research in Motion hit its lowest levels of planned buying and customer satisfaction ever seen in a ChangeWave survey. Motorola has seen a slight uptick overall while HTC is in the midst of a multi-quarter decline, although it did tie Samsung for second place in customer satisfaction.
Android OS ranked second in OS customer satisfaction while Windows, including both the new Windows Phone and the older Windows Mobile, was third. Breaking the two Windows operating systems apart revealed that the new OS has a much stronger Very Satisfied rating, 55 percent vs. 12 percent.