South Africans love Samsung, Apple more than any other phone brand

It’s no secret that Samsung and Apple are the world’s two most dominant smartphone manufacturers. And while the Korean company might have its Cupertino-based rival beat when it comes to volumes, the iPhone maker is far and away the more profitable company. But which manufacturer are people more satisfied with? Well in some countries, Samsung appears to be drawing ahead but in South Africa it appears to be a draw.

The results of a recent survey by South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) show that people in the country gave the mobile handsets industry an overall satisfaction score from its customers of 73.3 out of 100.

The handset manufacturers measured were Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry and a category of “other brands” based on market share. Apple, Samsung and “other brands” came out as the industry leaders, while Nokia scored on par with the industry and Blackberry scored significantly lower than the industry average, reflecting the company’s decline worldwide.

In line with global trends this year, satisfaction has grown with Samsung among South Africans, placing it on an equal footing with Apple.

“Samsung has improved its customer satisfaction since last year and it has done so in other markets as well. In the USA, Apple sells nearly twice the number of smart phones than Samsung, yet Samsung came out on top this year in one critical metric—customer satisfaction. In South Africa Samsung shares the customer satisfaction leadership position with Apple and other brands,” says Prof. Adré Schreuder, founder and chair of SAcsi.

Blackberry’s overall satisfaction score has declined further since last year and it is now recording one of the lowest scores we have seen for customer satisfaction in South Africa. Prof. Schreuder believes that Apple has a reputation for good quality but its product refresh cycles seem really long when new Android phones seem to be released much more often.

”The lower overall industry score is driven by lower perceived value – handsets are getting more expensive and customers are questioning the amount of added value they get from next generation phones. They appear to be wondering if it is warranted to pay much higher prices for very similar functionality,” he says.

According to Schreuder, there is also a growing understanding among customers that smartphones are data-hungry, whereas previously they tended to blame the networks for high data charges. “The main complaints customers specified centred on battery life, freezing operating systems and high data usage,” he says.

The research was conducted between January and June 2014 amongst 1 563 South African customers. Each company was measured through telephonic and web-survey methods at what SAcsi says is a statistically reliable sample of at least 270 respondents per company.