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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
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Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom

By | March 17, 2011, 9:49am PDT

Summary: J.D. Power detailed its smartphone customer satisfaction rankings and Apple remains top dog, but Motorola and HTC are nearly tied for the No. 2 spot.

J.D. Power on Thursday detailed its smartphone customer satisfaction rankings and Apple remains top dog, but Motorola and HTC are nearly tied for the No. 2 spot.

In other words, HTC and Motorola—two of the flagship Android brands—are improving. Here’s the scorecard:

A few items worth noting:

  • Motorola and HTC are equals in customer satisfaction, which may reflect more on Android commoditizing hardware.
  • Research in Motion is in trouble and at the bottom of the JD Power rankings.
  • Palm is in the middle of the pack and that may mean HP could get a smartphone foothold.
  • Samsung also rated near the bottom. That ranking is a bit surprising given the good reception for the Galaxy franchise.
  • J.D. Power said the ability to use social media on smartphones was a key factor in customer satisfaction. Smartphone users that used Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook on their phones had satisfaction averages 22 points higher than folks that didn’t use their devices socially.

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Topics

Research In Motion Ltd., Smart Phone, HTC Corp., Apple Inc., Customer Satisfaction, Motorola Inc., Product Marketing, Smart Phones, Cellular Phones, Handhelds, Marketing, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Hardware, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@Gis Bun Really yet when Android moved 1% ahead of the iPhone as a whole in the US market they were the clear winner of the two and on top?
View in thread
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Well good for Apple:)
James Quinn 17th Mar 2011
That's always nice to hear...

Pagan jim
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Samsung is rated poorly
Uralbas 17th Mar 2011
Because its poor handling of US Galaxy S device updates.

They should be glad they even got a 2 star rating. They are not worth as much. The Galaxy S lag makes the SuperAmoled nothing to brag about. Specially when you try a moded rom and see the diff.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
stewartngandu@... Updated - 18th Mar 2011
@Uralbas

But this is precisely one of the reasons why Apple users are a happy bunch. If you bought an iPhone in December to date it would have received two updates and on top of that an iPhone 4 owner is guaranteed of getting iOS 5. That's 2 years of guaranteed updates.

Though non-iPhone users bemoan iTunes, it is probably one of the reasons why Apple has managed to achieve a near universal update track record. As soon as you sync your phone to your computer iTunes auto starts and within seconds you are asked whether you want to install the latest iOS update.

This is a user experience android users can only dream of. Never mind the fact that iOS 4.3.1 was available a full 2 days ahead of schedule.
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Message has been deleted.
DonnieBoy Updated - 18th Mar 2011
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Viper589 17th Mar 2011
@DonnieBoy

and why do you need to bring microsoft into everything again?
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
bmonsterman 17th Mar 2011
@DonnieBoy,

Microsoft doesn't make smartphones.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Eric12341 Updated - 17th Mar 2011
@DonnieBoy microsoft doesnt make hardware u a$$hole
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
linux for me 17th Mar 2011
@Eric12341
Let's see....Xbox is hardware, Kinect is hardware, mice, keyboards...Shall I go on?? Maybe you should look in the mirror when posting.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Eric12341 17th Mar 2011
@linux for me i meant that they dont make computers or phones, i kno they made the xbox and kinect which is selling like hotcakes by the way
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Well, yes, though it would be nice to have it broken out by OS as well.
DonnieBoy 17th Mar 2011
NT.
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Of course you want to bring the OS into this Donnieboy
Will Farrell 17th Mar 2011
@Eric12341
If fo no other reason then to wipe that egg off your face!!
Why bring in the OS on a blog about hardawre?

I guess you would drag MS Sync into a story about the car maker's service satisfaction on tune ups!
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@Will Farrell And why wouldn't having it also broken down by OS be of any value?
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And, what is Google's ranking?
Stark_Industries 17th Mar 2011
@DonnieBoy
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
timspublic1@... 17th Mar 2011
@Stark_Industries Well they didn't manufacture it HTC did, but my Nexus One is still the best phone available...unlocked and free to be used as I see fit.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Gis Bun 21st Mar 2011
@Stark_Industries : I think they are basing the poll on hardware - not software. Of course the respondents have to be told about their hardware thoughts only. I'm sure some included software in it when they shouldn't of. Plus you have some manufacturers with more than one OS supported.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@Gis Bun Considering there was a boost in rating by those that use their smartphones for social networking I would say it's pretty much guaranteed that software did come into play.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
bobiroc 17th Mar 2011
@DonnieBoy

Does Microsoft Make a phone? I mean they may a mobile OS but I do not think outside of the failed Kin they make any of their own branded phones.

Of course if you were even semi-intelligent you would know that but you are a troll and needed a reason to bring Microsoft into a blog with Apple in the headline.
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It's to misdirect people away from the Google Nexus lines of phones?
John Zern 17th Mar 2011
@bobiroc
Maybe they're good, I don't know, but they sure aren't top sellers.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Slurpdog 18th Mar 2011
@bobiroc The Kin was made by Sharp
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@bobiroc While I didn't see his post before it was deleted and I agree based on the responses that bring MS into the discussion was not appropriate I do find it funny Google and MS get credit whenever the info is good but when it's bad all we hear is they don't make phones.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Chriz-tian 18th Mar 2011
@To all who replied to DonnieBoy..

NT is not for Windows NT, but for No Text... Before agruing, please do some brain job wink
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We know that. We're responding to
Will Farrell Updated - 18th Mar 2011
@Chriz-tian
his comment about "what's MS's ranking" in reponse to a blog about hardware manufacturing companies.
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Galaxy S Rating High?
mmarquis 17th Mar 2011
The hardware (mostly) is good. The software is not so good. The GPS for most users on this phone is an embarassment. That's why customer satisfaction is poor.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
A. Noid 17th Mar 2011
@mmarquis Actually, all I hear about is how slow they are to do Android updates to their phones, if they bother to do them at all. That's one of the main reason, both Motorola, and HTC are near the top, because they both do updates for theirs.
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This.
voyager529 17th Mar 2011
Samsung is notorious for necessitating rooting, simply to get OS updates. Half of them still don't have 2.2, and Samsung doesn't even seem to answer the question 'if'.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Rick_K 17th Mar 2011
This is practically worthless. I do not care about following people on Tweeter, let a lone using a phone to do it. Nor do I care for MyBook and FaceSpace (or whatever idiotic name it goes by).
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Rama.NET 17th Mar 2011
@Rick_K
exactly.
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From the having-things-to-do-with-the-price-of-tea-in-china department
voyager529 17th Mar 2011
@Rick_K

What does this have to do with the article? Neither Twitter nor Myspace nor Facebook are referenced in the article at all. The article was about customer hardware satisfaction in their cell phones. If you don't want to use social networking, then that's perfectly fine. If you're going to make it publicly known that this is the case, then you're welcome to do that. However, I don't think it's a lot to ask to at least do so where it's relevant discourse.

Joey
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Rick_K 17th Mar 2011
@voyager529
Neither Twitter nor Myspace nor Facebook are referenced in the article at all.

I guess you missed this part: J.D. Power said the ability to use social media on smartphones was a key factor in customer satisfaction.
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The key factor is Social Media
Will Farrell 17th Mar 2011
yet Palm, Nokia, BB phones really aren't really social media phones or are not bought by those looking to do social media.

Isn't that like saying the Tundra is the best pickup out there because the Camaro, Charger, or Focus doesn't haul as much gravel?
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Free BIS is making BBs more attractive to young social networkers
stewartngandu@... 18th Mar 2011
@Will Farrell

Dude it depends on which country you live in. South Africa has seen an explosion in BB penetration over the past year and its been driven by young people who spend the whole day twitting and FBing largely because of free BIS.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Peter Perry 17th Mar 2011
I don't trust anything JD Power says... These might well'be accurate by they have made too many claims in the past of this nature and they were proven to be less than accurate by places like Edmunds and consumer Reports.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Peter Perry 17th Mar 2011
@Peter Perry I guess what I am trying to say is, saying you got an award from JD Powers ia like saying you got a degree from UOP. :-D
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Pete "athynz" Athens 17th Mar 2011
@Peter Perry Of course if they have nothing but good things to say about Android and horrible things to say about Apple then they are legitimate.../sarcasm
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Isn't this the driving question behind the iPad?
James Quinn 17th Mar 2011
For a good decade or more there were Tablets but the market itself languished until the iPad came along. Now one can say there were smallish tablet success stories and I'v e even read a claim by a couple people on these boards that their given tablet of choice back in the day running Windows was and is to them at least the bee's knee's and such. I do not doubt that there is a market for a full blown computer in tablet form myself my only question is how big a market? The point being here as well as the social media phones is yes there are those who use a phone that don't have any need/desire for social media but again how big a market is that? The question is do you give your customers what they want or not? If a large sum of customers want that then is it not your duty as a supplier of said products to give it to them? One can not deny the success or impact of the iPad and or iPhone nor even the iPod for that matter. What one can say is "It's not for me" and I nor anyone with a lick of sense will argue that point. When there are people whose very moniker is something like "ipadsucks" and this very same person tries to sell others on the idea that the iPad does indeed blank I find it bemusing? Why can't they or this person realize that there are a host of manufacturers out there making a wide variety of automobiles and just because he/she needs a full blown pickup truck does not mean I'm perfectly good with my Honda economy car? To each his/her own I say and if Apple hits the sweet spot with several million customers does not mean there are not millions even billions out there with "OTHER" needs. To tell the truth I'm not even sure why we argue at all? The truth is "to each their own" is very American and we as individuals have no need to justify our likes/wants to anyone:) Thor bless America!

Pagan jim
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that's 5 Times in a Row for Apple winning.
Davewrite Updated - 17th Mar 2011
nt
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Yay!!!
Will Farrell 17th Mar 2011
@Davewrite
???
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was your question ??? asking me to repeat what i said?
Davewrite Updated - 17th Mar 2011
@Will Farrell

well here it is:

iPhone has kicked ALL the other phones (all the droids, rim, palms, win mos) AGAIN and that's 5 Times running. FIVE!!!

Astonishing with ALL those models and all the geeky android reviewers and droid fans saying droid phones are so much more awesome, polls of larger number of ACTUAL USERS always has apple kicking their azz all over the landscape (goes for Win Mo, Palm, symbian and Blackberry as well). All of these other guys when it comes to actual customer satisfaction shows they're nothing more than 'emperors with no clothes' ..

this also means lots of droid users are throwing their phones in frustration, the top guys featured here only have like 3 or 2 stars vs apple's 5!!!!

did you want me to repeat this again more detail?
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Davewrite, maybe he was shocked you said something
John Zern 17th Mar 2011
@Will Farrell
that was totally unexpected from you. wink
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
timspublic1@... 17th Mar 2011
Because Apple fans simply ignore the defects that continue to plague the iPhones, as they pray to Cupertino each day.
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Possible and probable.... Those are
James Quinn 17th Mar 2011
@timspublic1@...
the basis of how I judge things. I do think that everything is possible but only a few things are actually probable. Now what you claimed is possible I suppose, but I think it is not very probable. So here is a far more likely issue. Yes Apple products are not perfect but to users their flaws are not nearly as bothersome as someone like you would think and the positives of the Apple products far out weigh the drawbacks. Also just so you know and I think you do. Many an iPhone or iPad user/owner does not own a Macintosh. Some own PC's and have used phones from other suppliers over the years. This is a whole new world for Apple in many ways one of which is that not everyone who owns and Apple product can be considered a "fanatic" any longer:) Cheers my friend.

Pagan jim
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Rick_K 17th Mar 2011
@James Quinn
I expected a more in-depth report than just using social media websites as the determining factor. Granted Apple users tend to be happier with their equipment. But this particular study (if it can be called that) is practically worthless, as they focus on the most unimportant factor of all.
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Unimportant to whom?
Robert Hahn 17th Mar 2011
@Rick_K@ "this particular study (if it can be called that) is practically worthless, as they focus on the most unimportant factor of all."You seem to be trying to establish your own set of priorities as the Universal Standard For All. It was not J.D. Power that "focused on" social media; the people who used the phones did that.

It's also not accurate to say that the rankings of the phones changed according to whether people did or did not use social media. You can't conclude that from anything J.D. Power reported. What they did say was that people who used social media were 22% happier with their phones than those who did not. But that appears to hold for all the phones from all the vendors.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Rick_K 17th Mar 2011
@Robert Hahn
The problem with this study is it is biased towards a specific group. You cannot make a generalized statement based on a particular group. I used qualifiers like Granted Apple users tend to be happier with their equipment rather than expressing things based on who uses Facebook on their mobile device.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
Pete "athynz" Athens 17th Mar 2011
@timspublic1@... That has got to be the most idiotic theory I've heard on these boards... and not surprisingly it's from an ABA troll.

The ONLY issue I've had with my iPhones (I owned a 3G until I sold it on eBay and bought my iPhone4) is the DST alarm issue. No "grip of death", no bluetooth issues, no dropped calls (on AT&T's network no less), no other issues at all. Everyone I've spoken to who have iPhones have had no issues. I have 4 friends/ coworkers who own viPhones (VZW iPhones) and their only gripe is not being able to surf the web and talk at the same time.

But sure, you Apple Haters know it all... and people with FIRST HAND experience with these devices and have positive things to say about them by definition must be Job's worshipers. After all it's not like consistently good products and good customer service are actually criteria for customer satisfaction surveys, right? Let me guess your ABA theory is that Apple must have paid off people...
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
windozefreak 18th Mar 2011
@athynz
Well, I guess they are trying to follow the rules established by the iwoshippers. See, we have been beaten to pulp over apple having perfect equip[ment--it cost more--because the equipment is better than any other thing on earth. Windows users have been whipped into a frenzy all because Windows products were not perfect.

Now looking back, you are the only person (in the whole wide world) that did not have some problem with the ithing. Fair turnabout is fair play! Glad to hear you announce that the igadgets are not perfect. Thank you Sir! Thats all we wanted.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@windozefreak Exactly who is claiming that any Apple product is perfect aside from extreme fanboys who even Apple fans dismiss? Fanboys and haters are no different other than their preferred OS, device, manufacturer and so on. You certainly come across as a hater which means your comments are probably completely dismissed by most. I am sorry that Apple's satisfaction rate has always been so high that you have to make stuff up like "Well, I guess they are trying to follow the rules established by the iwoshippers." to make yourself feel better but it's not going to change anything.

BTW, I guess athynz isn't the only person in the world that hasn't had issue with their ithing because I haven't either.
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
dfhjtykyk 18th Mar 2011
http://in2s.us/1z8
http://in2s.us/1z8
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Apple will ALWAYS end up on top in these kind of surveys
adornoe@... 18th Mar 2011
because, the Apple fanatics will always give their preferred iSomethingOrOther a high rating.

It's like asking people to rate their religion against others.
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It's simpler than that... They are just
James Quinn 18th Mar 2011
@adornoe@...
satisfiedhappy with their purchases:) You should try it!

Pagan jim
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RE: Apple tops customer satisfaction; Motorola, HTC No. 2; RIM hits bottom
non-biased 25th Mar 2011
@Gis Bun Really yet when Android moved 1% ahead of the iPhone as a whole in the US market they were the clear winner of the two and on top?

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