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Samsung intent-to-buy nearly triples while iPhone remains a leader: study

Consumer interest in purchasing a Samsung smartphone has nearly tripled since the fall, while demand for the Apple iPhone remains strong even more than two months after the new iPhone 4S was released, according to new data from ChangeWave Research.

The December survey of 4,000 North American consumers found that 13 percent of respondents who planned on buying a smartphone in the next 90 days intended to buy a Samsung, up from 5 percent in September. For the iPhone, the number reached 54 percent, which is down from September but still a very strong number.

?Apple has never dominated smartphone planned buying to this extent a couple of months after a new release - Apple has huge momentum in the first quarter,? said Paul Carton, vice president of research at ChangeWave Research, Rockville, MD.

?The other big surprise is Samsung, with the biggest move we?ve ever seen,? he said.

?Both companies are taking share to the benefit of themselves and not to the benefit of the other manufacturers in the market right now.?

Who wants ice cream?
The newly released Galaxy Nexus, which is the first U.S. 4G phone running Android?s new 4.0 operating system - otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich ? appears to be a major driving force behind the jump in planned buying for Samsung, according to ChangeWave.

In addition to the Galaxy Nexus driving interest in Samsung, the OEM?s plans to update some of its more popular models in the first quarter with the 4.0 operating system is also drawing consumer interest.

The 13 percent demand rate is the highest Samsung has experienced between October 2007 and December 2011, according to ChangeWave?s data.

Samsung has a broad portfolio of Android phones that it continues to update.

For the iPhone, consumer interest reached 54 percent in December, which is down 11 points from 65 percent in September.  However, Apple has never dominated smartphone planned buying to this extent more than two months after a major new release, according to ChangeWave.

A key reason for the iPhone?s high demand is its leading customer satisfaction rating, with 75 percent of iPhone owners saying they are very satisfied with their smartphone. Samsung?s satisfaction rating is 47 percent, HTC?s 47 percent, Motorola?s 45 percent and Research In Motion?s 22 percent.

Customer satisfaction by operating system also favors Apple, with 75 percent of customers using Apple iOS saying they are very satisfied. Android comes in second with 47 percent of its users saying they are very satisfied.

?It is no coincidence that Apple is all the way at the top,? Mr. Carton said. ?People don?t buy smartphones just to be satisfied ? they want to pay the extra in order to have something very special.

?It is really those manufacturers that can create the best products with the sexiest bells and whistles that can create a huge edge for themselves,? he said.

?That?s the message here ? in the smartphone world, you want to have the goods and be on the cutting edge, producing something that your customer wants.?

BlackBerry sours
In third place by OS is Windows OS ? which includes Windows Phone and Windows Mobile ? at 32 percent, up 8 points since the previous survey.

Planned buying for Motorola reached 7 percent in December, up from 5 percent in September. Interest in Motorola started dropping from its high of 19 percent in June 2007 and reached a low point of 6 percent in September of this year.

While interest in Motorola made a slight comeback in December, interest in HTC continued to drop, as it has been doing since June 2010. In December, interest reached 3 percent, down from 6 percent in September.

Interest in BlackBerry dropped to 2 percent from 3 percent, its lowest level ever in a ChangeWave survey.

?RIM used to be number two with a very high rating in terms of customer satisfaction,? Mr. Carton said.

?What happened was that they were riding on their old strengths and all of a sudden, a bunch of competitors came out with all of these other bells and whistles and RIM was slow to respond,? he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York