Gosh. As can be seen from the chart above, which was extracted from a press release about the J.D. Power and Associates 2006 Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation Study, Sanyo did the best, smacking down more established players.
These figures are based upon a surveys, in the US, conducted around October 2005 and February 2006, with 18,740 participants who had mobiles newer than 2 years old. Satisfaction was based on five factors: physical design (24%), operation (22%), features (20%), handset durability (19%) and battery function (15%).
What this really means, though, is open to question. There is a rather high degree of subjectivity involved in determinations of "satisfaction," and while the reasonably large number of survey participants may alleviate issues such as the differing numbers of customers using each brand, without sighting the entire report it is difficult to make any certain conclusions. So all we can really say is what the press release states:
(1) customer satisfaction ratings have increased most significantly from 2005 in phone
operation (increasing 5%) and features (increasing 5%);
(2) average reported handset purchase price in 2006 is $86—a decrease from $99 in 2004;
(3) average replacement cycle for a typical handset is 17.6 months—a slight decrease from 18 months in 2005;
(4) the most-used features on the handset include the speakerphone (26%), send/receive short messaging services [SMS] (22%), camera capabilities (19%) and gaming (16%); and
(5) more than 40 percent of all current wireless users compared other handset brands before selecting their current wireless phone. Those who did compare phones during the selection process were significantly more likely to be satisfied overall with their current handset than those who did not.
Whether any of this can be extrapolated outside the US is difficult to predict, as certain brands (notably Sony Ericsson and Nokia) have very different models elsewhere.
[via Arstechnica]
