Nearly one-third of Canadian cell phone users now own a ‘smartphone’
Among other interesting findings, the J.D. Power and Associates “2009 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study” released today found the percentage of wireless customers in Canada who own a smartphone has increased from 25 percent in 2008 to 32 percent in 2009.
Published by J.D. Power and Associates, a new report about Canadian mobile phone habits found that smartphone penetration has jumped from a quarter of the wireless population to one-third — in one year.
This, folks, is significant, but perhaps not surprising, now that prices are dropping, new features are added all the time, and there’s plenty of competition out there.
Here’s a summary of the other findings from this report:
* Smartphone owners says they use their devices for personal reasons 70 percent of the time and for business about 30 percent of the time.
* What are the most popular downloadable apps? Social media applications ranked no. 1 (32 percent), followed by games (32 percent), travel tools such as maps and weather services (29 percent) and business/professional programs (28 percent).
* When it comes to customer satisfaction, Virgin Mobile ranked highest in satisfying prepaid and post-paid wireless services; Apple (iPhone) and Sanyo ranked highest among mobile phone makers in the smartphone and conventional mobile phone category, respectively.
* Wireless customers in Canada are less likely to recommend and remain loyal to their current service providers. In 2008, 25 percent of those surveyed said they would “definitely” recommend their wireless service provider to friends and family, but only 20 percent said they’d do it in 2009. An even staggering decline is in intent to renew with an existing wireless provider. In 2008, 33 percent of Canadians said they would renew, but that number dropped to 20 percent in 2009.
* About one in three (34 percent) of smartphone users report experiencing a problem with their device, compared with only 18 percent of traditional mobile phone users. The most common complaint among smartphone owners? Devices that “freeze” and need to be rebooted.
* The 2009 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study is based on responses from nearly 15,000 mobile phone users, fielded between September and October 2009.
Are you surprised by any of these results?
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