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ChangeWave: Buyers prefer iPhone over Android, iCloud to create additional demand for Apple products

9to5 Staff | Jul 18 2011 - 6:07 am PT

ChangeWave Research is out this morning with the newest survey based on a poll of 4,163 consumers in June, eleven percent of which were outside the US. The research focused on planned and past purchases of smartphones, showing that Apple’s handset is still the preferred device in spite of Android becoming the top-selling smartphone platform as millions of feature phone consumers in the United States and elsewhere upgrade to their first smartphone, usually a cheap Android handset.

According to the research firm, the iPhone is the go-to phone for some 46 percent of respondents planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, a two percentage points increase over ChangeWave’s March survey. Google’s Android is second with a 32 percent share of smartphone purchases planned in the next 90 days. Google, however, grew just one percentage point in the eyes of the consumer from the March survey. Just four percent plan on buying a BlackBerry in the next 90 days, a far cry from the platform’s high of 32 percent in September of 2008.

In November of 2010, when the iPhone was available exclusively on the AT&T network in the US, ChangeWave discovered that over a third of non-AT&T consumers would have liked to have purchased the iPhone, if their wireless provider carried it. Apple also tops the customer satisfaction rankings and the iCloud service could help the company widen its lead in terms of happy customers…

In terms of operating system customer Satisfaction, nearly three out of four respondents – or 70 percent – are Very Satisfied with iOS compared to only half of Android users. Microsoft’s Windows OS and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS have a lot of pluming to do as only 27 percent and 26 percent of users, respectively. “But in an encouraging sign for Microsoft, we continue to see a big difference between the high Very Satisfied rating for Windows Phone 7 (57 percent) vs. the much lower rating for Windows Mobile OS (14 percent)”, Changewave added. In November of 2010, when the iPhone was available exclusively on the AT&T network in the US, ChangeWave discovered that over a third of non-AT&T consumers would have liked to have purchased the iPhone, if their wireless provider carried it. The iCloud service, which is scheduled to go live this Fall – will enhance customer loyalty, with some consumers more likely to pick Apple’s platform over Google’s Android. A healthy 29 percent of Apple product owners are More Likely to buy Apple products in the future versus 13 percent of non-Apple owners.