iPhone scores 79% in customer satisfaction survey; RIM trails at 54%
Three pictures from the latest ChangeWave smartphone survey offer good news for Apple, mixed news for Research in Motion and terrible news for Palm. All three are from a survey of 3,597 high-end consumers conducted between March 17 and March 24. See here.
The first shows current market share among the respondents. Apple’s (AAPL) upward climb is accelerating, RIM (RIMM) is easing slightly but still holding its own, and Palm (PALM) is down for the seventh consecutive ChangeWave survey, dating back to June 2006.
The second picture is a bar chart showing the percentage of customers who indicate they are “very satisfied” with their smartphone. Apple iPhone satisfaction is at near-record levels. RIM is hovering over 50%. And Palm has fallen to the bottom of the heap, below even Sony and Motorola.
The last chart shows the preferences of the respondents who say they plan to buy a smartphone over the next three months. The iPhone has for the first time passed the RIM in this survey - “up a whopping 12 points” since January, as ChangeWave’s Paul Carton puts it. RIM is down 3 points and Palm is down 5.
Carton attributes the sharply increased interest in the iPhone among ChargeWave’s membership to the flurry of announcements surrounding release of the iPhone Software Developers Kit. Sounds right to me.
79% “Very” satisfied. That’s really stunning. Sales and share will follow that inevitably (which of course is also indicated by the other charts.)
Oh wait I must be a fanboy… right a shocking 21% are less than VERY satisfied… better watch out for RIM with 46% less than V.S. Surely they are one new model away from sending Apple back to Beleaguered City.
Plus, of course, Windows Mobile will get a full featured web browser by the END OF THIS YEAR. Then MS will pwn it all.
I’d see all that if I weren’t a fanboy.
What I mean by exaggeration is that my phone rate is much higher than that! 
I have to wonder about the validity of a person who uses arguments in their comment with exaggerations such as a $1400 service plan. Clearly, the rate is higher, there is no question about that. The credibility of the position must be questioned when the author has to rely on fictitious information to make a point.
@Dan.
Most iPhone buyers aren’t Mac users.
http://rubiconconsulting.com/downloads/whitepapers/Rubicon-iPhone_User_Survey.pdf
Having owned a Palm Treo for years I am not surprised at all. Verizon’s EVDO high speed nework is tremendous but the Treo can’t take advantage of it because in Palm’s infinite wisdom, they equiped it with a mere 128MB of memory. Despite this it blows the iphone away in web surfing, not because of the phone, but because of the AT&T network its on. If Verizon had the iphone, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Palm is just about dead unless they come up with a competitive phone fast.
Is anyone surprised that Apple fanboys are self-satisfied? Even if they weren’t they would lie to justify their $500 phone + $1400 service plan.
looks like an article back from few months ago, recycled and biased
Very good. This is pretty amazing.
But please what is the total of Very Satisfied + Satisfied? This is really the most telling figure.
Thanks.
The TRAIN is picking up speed…Get on board or get out of the way!…You too PED
Who was the stupid analyst that said that the Mac was the only growth engine of the three Apple product lines (Mac, ipod,iphone). They also said that Apple would “only” sell 8 million iphones this year, even when Apple was insisting they would sell 10 million, and when Apple management always under-promises and over-delivers.
Due to the monthly revenue sharing with carriers, the iphone is incredibly more lucrative than the ipod for Apple.
This is no surprise. Apple has such a bright future & it will continue for a long time.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
why HTC isn’t considered on that survey?