J.D. Power: Touchscreen Input Leads Smartphone Satisfaction

• Posted: Sunday, April 04, 2010
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Smartphone

By Jason Ankeny

Smartphone owners with touchscreen-enabled devices enjoy considerably higher satisfaction than consumers with phones incorporating more conventional input mechanisms like text keyboards, according to marketing information services firm J.D. Power and Associates' 2010 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study.

Among smartphone owners with touchscreen, satisfaction averages 771 on a 1,000-point scale, nearly 40 index points higher than other wireless subscribers--J.D. Power notes that slightly more than one half of respondents indicate their smartphone includes a touchscreen interface, adding that Apple ranks highest among smartphone manufacturers with a consumer satisfaction score of 810, followed by Research In Motion at 741.

The J.D. Power study also reports that both smartphone and feature phone users are increasingly using their devices for entertainment and media sharing. A quarter of mass-market handset owners now send and receive multimedia and picture messages, up 25 percent from just six months ago, while smartphone users are nearly twice as likely to share multimedia messages. Moreover, 17 percent of touchscreen-based smartphone users say they frequently download and watch video content, significantly higher than the segment average.

Additional findings of the J.D. Power survey:

Sixty percent of smartphone owners report downloading third-party games for entertainment, and 46 percent download travel software, e.g. maps and weather applications. Thirty-one percent say they download utility applications, while 26 percent say they download business-specific software.

Thirty-five percent of feature phone owners indicate they want GPS features on their next handset, compared to 15 percent of smartphone owners.

Younger users are more satisfied with their handset, regardless of whether they own a feature phone or a smartphone. Satisfaction among feature phone users ages 18 to 24 is 35 index points higher than the segment average, while satisfaction among smartphone users within the same demographic is 18 index points above the norm. [FierceMobileContent]

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