Australian’s may not be as loyal to their current brand of smartphone as the makers would like according to a brand switch survey from Finder.com.au.
Before getting to the results, the accepted paradigm has been that if you are happy with a brand you stick to it, and equally if you are happy with the ecosystem (Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android) you stick to that - primarily because it is what you are familiar with and there is often an investment in apps or music that that may not transfer well from one to the other.
Finder has surveyed 2,031 people and says that the accepted paradigm is not correct - 36% of Australians (5.5 million phone buyers) will buy whichever phone or ecosystem they prefer at purchase time. That leaves 63.4% who will probably buy a newer version of what they have but it opens a significant opportunity for challenger brands to make inroads.
With that in mind it means that top of mind awareness, innovation and differentiators, not brand loyalty, will decide which brands are winners in 2017.
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Finder found
| Aussies’ smartphone loyalty | |
| Buy whichever phone when they need a new one | 36% |
| With Apple and stick with Apple | 33% |
| With Samsung and stick with Samsung | 21% |
| With Sony and stick with Sony | 1.8% |
| With HTC and stick with HTC | 1.5% |
| With Google and stick with Google | 1.3% |
| With Microsoft and stick with Microsoft | 1.0% |
| With Huawei and stick with Huawei | 0.7% |
| With LG and stick with LG | 0.6% |
| With Motorola and stick with Motorola | 0.4% |
| With Oppo and stick with Oppo | 0.3% |
| With BlackBerry and stick with BlackBerry | 0.3% |
| With Alcatel and stick with Alcatel | 0.1% |
These figures are skewed by the sheer volume of Apple and Samsung owners and there is no baseline to indicate if there has been a big swing or not – perhaps the next survey will show this!
Other interesting facts from the survey included:
- Gen Y are strong Apple supporters with 46% of respondents sticking with iPhones
- Baby Boomers are the least loyal, with more than half buying whichever phone they prefer at the time of purchase
- Huawei had the biggest growth in brand intent in 2016 with handset searches increasing 101%
- OPPO had a 53% increase
- Google Pixel/XL had an 86% increase
- Apple interest remained stable
- Sony had biggest proportional dip in interest
- The Note 7 incident did impact Samsung’s brand moving from 32% of mobile comparisons earlier in 2016, to 23% by mid-year, and steadily decreased over the rest of the year, finishing at 19% in December
- Of those sticking to the brand, Apple was the first preference sitting at an average of 62%, Samsung at 25%, and all other manufacturers at 13%
- There were 115 handsets on the Australian market to choose from
Methodology: Finder used “intent” – What do you own now and what do you think you would buy. It is similar to the Kantar World Panel Comtech methodology and does not reflect actual ship-in/out statistics.
Nevertheless, intent is an important indicator to a brand marketer and its showing that Samsung is more vulnerable that perhaps it hoped and that Android users will swap brands within that ecosystem based on what excites them – primarily because it is not so “sticky” to swap.
Samsung has done a lot of work on its Smart Switch software and can now swap users out of iOS with ease including their iTunes audio content. I am sure Apple will have a similar, even smarter, switch.
iTWire has seen an increasing acceptance of Chinese brands – Huawei, OPPO, ZTE and more and they all know that 2017 is a make or break year as the smartphone wars hot up. iTWire has an article on that here.