Apple And Samsung Take Top Spots In Smartphone Satisfaction Survey

If you've listened to Apple CEO Tim Cook over the years, you've probably heard him focus on one thing more than any other: customer satisfaction. It's the data point that drives him, and in many ways, Apple itself. It's hardly about revenue, profit margin, or market share. In his view, if customers are in love with a product, the rest will fall into place. Obviously, that mantra has worked out fairly well for Apple, and it continues to bear fruit.

A new J.D. Power survey, which looked at U.S. wireless smartphone satisfaction among users, has both Apple and Samsung atop the charts. According to its findings, both Apple and Samsung are leading in overall satisfaction performance among the U.S. wireless "Tier 1" carriers.


Here's a bit from J.D. Power: "Apple and Samsung are the only smartphone brands to achieve overall satisfaction scores that are at or above the study average in all four performance factors."


Interestingly, Apple devices ranked highest among customers of AT&T and Verizon, while Samsung ranked highest among Sprint and T-Mobile users. Our hunch is that AT&T and Verizon were the first two carriers in the U.S. to secure the iPhone, and it's likely that customers who gravitated towards the iPhone were likely to end up on one of those carriers early on. Sprint and T-Mobile only recently secured the iPhone, and therefore are less likely to have diehard Apple fans; the diehards would've probably made the move to AT&T or Verizon years ago rather than being patient and waiting for another carrier to start stocking the iPhone.