SmallBizResource Blog -- Research

iDuh: Customers Want Smarter Phones

Posted by Gayle Kesten Sunday, Feb 10, 2008, 06:57 PM ET

Hold onto your headsets! New research has declared a "seismic shift" in the kind of mobile phones we consumers want.

ChangeWave Research, a subsidiary of Phillips Investment Resources, last month surveyed 4,182 consumers about their mobile phone buying plans. Its findings: Of the 23 percent of respondents who plan to buy a new phone in the next six months, Apple's iPhone is first on the list and RIM's Blackberry is second.

That's all well and good, but then ChangeWave uses that stat as the basis of its more monumental finding: consumers' desire -- wait for it -- for more advanced phones.

As for the conclusion in and of itself, my son sums it up best: duh. After all, don't we already know this? For example, last month Strategy Analytics predicted that by 2018 all mobile phones will be smartphones. According to ABI Research, the "smartphone segment is witnessing the fastest growth in the handset market, [with] handset vendors coming out with new smartphones almost every 3-6 months." In 2007, smartphone sales experienced 163 percent growth over 2006, reported the NPD Group.

My other question: Can findings based on less than one-quarter of a 4,182-person population (that's 962 people) really be labeled a seismic shift? Promising would be more like it if in the context of, say, some potential medical breakthrough. But you certainly wouldn't sell yourself to clients based on what 23 percent of your clientele had to say.

Or maybe I'm being naive. Seismically naive. Let me know. I can take it.

Research