HTC accounts for nearly half (44%) customer Smartphone comments online

London 11 July – Social media research specialist DigitalMR releases latest findings on what customers are saying about smartphones on the internet.

DigitalMR analysed over ¾ million customer comments about smartphones across Jan-Jun 2011. Over two-thirds (69%) of these customer views are positive, compared with 31% negative.

HTC garners more mentions than any other brand, with a 44% market share of all positive comments and a 32% share of, the smaller, negative comments group. Next placed is Motorola with 16% of positive mentions and 21% of negative, followed by Apple – 12% positive, 15% negative.

Results are based on comments posted by consumers on the major smartphone brands: Apple, Motorola, Samsung, RIM (Blackberry), HTC, LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Huawei and HP across Jan-June 2011.

DigitalMR’s analysis (powered by SocialNuggets) is based on comments posted via a range of relevant websites and open access social media platforms. It measures, not only the number of comments posted by consumers on the internet, but also their sentiment – whether posts are positive or negative in nature.

Managing Director of DigitalMR, Michalis Michael commented: “Although Blackberry and iPhone are perceived to be the market leading models, HTC is the major player when it comes to online buzz. Its younger audience profile appears to be more vocal and their word of mouth is far more positive than negative”.

With many new customers now poised to replace standard handsets with smartphones, what do existing consumers actually think about them?

1)    Net Sentiment
All the brands measured, achieve a positive Net Sentiment Score (NSS) for Jan-June, except Huawei with minus 51%. NSS provides an overall percentage score of net positive posts.

The average NSS taken across all the brands measured is 39%. This shows customers are generally very happy with their devices and are sharing the good news online.

Of the three most talked about brands on the web, HTC had a NSS of 51%, followed by below average scores of 28% for Motorola and 27% for Apple.

 

2)    Positive and negative posts
HTC generates more than three times as many positive online comments as negative, and it accounts for 44% of all positive posts among consumers on the internet across Jan-Jun 2011. The next highest performers are Motorola 16%, followed by Apple and Samsung, both with 12%.

Of all negative posts measured, HTC accounts for 32%. Motorola is next with 21%, followed by Apple 15% and Samsung 14%.

3)    Features
DigitalMR measured thousands of customer posts regarding the services and features attributed to smartphones.

For operators looking for service improvements, the most negatively commented upon feature was “Connectivity” which accounted for 18% of negative service related comments. This was followed by: Service Provider 16%, Operating System 13% and Data Connectivity 13%. However, overall comments on features are almost twice as likely to be positive as negative.

4)    In their words – positive customer comments

Connectivity:

“A mate has an HTC Desire, it has everything you need. If you have Gmail as your email client, you can download an App for it which makes sending email almost as easy as it is on your laptop you can send attachments from your phone easy”.

“Nokia still offers the best for outright connectivity performance especially the Symbian S^3 based ranges which are all 5 band UMTS based. If you not after a smartphone per say then Telstra also offer their Blue Tick range of handsets which are stated as having the best reception connectivity on NextG. Overall the best choice would be the Nokia N8!”

Service provider:

“I got myself a Blackberry Torch from AT&T, the phone aint the best, but I think getting it for free is amazing. For AT&T customers who are wondering why I got it for free? I think AT&T had a promo that lasted Jan.6; they would replace your old phone with a new one. It's like upgrading your phone but with no extension of contract or whatsoever. The only thing is, there would be additional charges on your bill; coz if you get a smartphone, you need internet, so you need to pay that. Imagine free phone! Awesome!”

“T-mobile has customer service reps especially trained to field iPhone questions. They won't help you unlock it but they certainly will discuss your plan options and what to expect from their service while using your device. I am quite happy with them. I have a grandfathered unlimited voice/data/text plan that's been too sweet to give up for a new iPhone on an authorized network”.

Battery:

“I can say that the iPhone 4 battery life is fantastic. I do much more then you in the course of a business day and after 12-14 hours I have around 30% battery. This phone handles heavy use no problem. Much improved over the 3GS that I used to own”.

“The battery life is pretty amazing for my usage on the iPhone 4. Even with a hard usage I still come home with around 35% left. Normally I was charging my phone a few times a day”.

“For the E5 battery, I think it’s about 18hrs talk and about 600hrs standby.... That’s pretty awesome for this smartphone. Screen is a little small, but you can’t have everything. Good travel and business phone”.

Net Sentiment Score
“To be the lone contrarian here, let me predict SUCCESS! Nokia just has to create the 30$ Winphone with bells and whistles to show the world that there are cheap, powerful alternatives to the fancy Apple and Andorid offerings. Ooh, and those phones should appear within the year. Let's see that multibillion-dollar war-chest again, and let's see it committed to a brighter world with lots of windows!”

“Rather unfashionable for the Reg it seems but WP7 is a fantastic OS. Whilst upgrading my HD2 from the POS that is WP6.5 to Android has been great for me it still feels old, clunky and fugly compared to my WP7 Optimus. Looking forward to some nice hardware from Nokia and glad that increased visibility will help even more apps appear on the platform. Also really pleased that the usual MS haters are so put out,fantastic.”

“Go Go away troll. Nokia’s distribution will make Windows Phone 7 a top 3 platform. Also Nokia diversifies with WP7 as an OS. It's a win-win”

5)    How can smartphone brands use social media to their advantage?

Smartphones can use analysis of data from websites and other social media in the following ways:

• Engage in a one-to-one dialogue with their customers and respond to negative comments.
• Invite some of the customers to join online forums and chat groups to further express their views
• Positive sentiment can be leveraged in advertising
• Operations can learn about and fix specific retail and product performance issues

About the syndicated smartphone report
DigitalMR produces monthly reports which monitor thousands of customers’ online conversations through comments posted on open-access social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, forums, blogs, microblogs and commercial websites, for comments regarding smartphone services.
The report is available on annual subscription with updates provided on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis. Results will be updated to the press on a monthly basis.

Contact
For regular reports and more information:
Michalis A. Michael
mmichael@digital-mr.com,
tel: +44 751 571 0370
www.digital-mr.com

About DigitalMR

DigitalMR understands what people think and feel when they share views online. It is a specialist agency which provides a holistic approach to web based market research. It specialises in utilising social media research, especially active web-listening, and online communities to enhance its business consulting approach. The agency has pioneered new methods in online focus groups alongside tools such as video diaries, bulletin boards and online ethnography. DigitalMR is headed by founder and MD, Michalis Michael and has offices in London UK, Nicosia Cyprus, and Columbus Ohio, in the US.

 

About SocialNuggets
SocialNuggets technology delivers real-time market intelligence for fast moving industries by analyzing data from various social media sources with a mission to liberate social media data and sentiment analysis for use in real-time research of brands, products and features. SocialNuggets delivers ready to use market intelligence for various industry verticals including consumer electronics and banking. SocialNuggets data is delivered in bite size, ready-to-consume, infographics and is also available in the form of a full access to our data warehouse for analysis and integration with customers’ data. SocialNuggets, a Serendio company, was founded in 2011 with headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.