Apple iPhone, LG Smartphones Top J.D. Power Report

Apple iPhone users reported the highest degree of satisfaction among smartphone users, followed by users of LG Electronics smartphones, according to a new report from J.D. Power and Associates.
Those results are based on J.D. Power’s 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study – Volume 1.
In a similar J.D. Power study that focused on traditional mobile phones, LG came out on top, followed by Sony Ericsson.
The studies did not rank the phones against each other but were based on the experiences that 2,648 smartphone users and 15,270 traditional mobile phone users reported having with their phones, which they had owned for less than two years.
Satisfaction was measured through key factors that smartphone users ranked in order of importance as: ease of operation (30 percent); operating system (22 percent); features (21 percent); physical design (18 percent); and battery function (9 percent).
Among traditional mobile phone users, ease of operation and physical design tied as most important, with 30 percent of the votes each, followed by a tie between features and battery function, each with 20 percent of the votes.
Based on the factors listed above, study participants ranked their phones on a 1,000-point scale. In the smartphone study, Apple received 791 points on the index, followed by LG with 772 points, Samsung with 759, HTC with 744, RIM BlackBerry with 739, Palm with 736 and Motorola with a dramatically low 659.
Among traditional mobile phone users, LG received 733 out of the 1,000 points, followed by Sony Ericsson with 712, Samsung with 705, Motorola with 697, Sanyo with 693, Nokia with 688 and Kyocera with 683.
J.D. Power also found that more than 40 percent of smartphone users replaced landline calling with mobile phone calling, while only 28 percent of traditional mobile phone users had done the same.
Additionally, among traditional mobile users overall satisfaction had remained stable since November 2008, though 33 percent said they would like GPS capabilities on their next phone.
These users also reported paying an average of $28 less per month for wireless services than smartphone owners and $111 less on their purchase of the phone, and 42 percent had received their phone free after rebates or discounts – an increase of 10 percent from the same study released in November 2008.
“Many owners of traditional handsets do not believe that the service cost associated with owning a smartphone is justified, as they indicated that they would not take full advantage of the advanced features,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates, in a statement on the reports.
Among smartphone users, J.D. Power reported that satisfaction had “increased considerablly since its Nov. 2008 study, which Apple also came out on top of, with a ranking of 778.