Posted Date: 10/27/2009

Biz Users Drive iPhone into the Enterprise

The revolution in smartphone adoption storms into the retail enterprise forcing CIOs to accommodate the hot Apple iPhone, which was just voted the top mobile phone in a poll of biz users, beating RIM's Blackberry and traditional mobile phones. As consumers shift from traditional mobile phones to smartphones, especially the enterprise unfriendly iPhone, retail CIOs are being forced to shift gears from previously held biases against the Apple operating system. The smartphone revolution also is forcing retailers to speed up their adoption of mobile commerce to seize untapped potential.

Biz users want full-featured mobile phones, which are being purchased by companies and consumers alike at a booming rate as manufactures race to improve the styling, feature sets, usability and software. So, it's no surprise that sophisticated, feature-rich smartphones, such as the iPhone, beat traditional mobile phones, which are quickly losing steam, according to J.D. Power & Associates 2009 Wireless Business Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study.

Biz Users Rank Smartphones
Among customers who use their smartphones primarily for business purposes, Apple's iPhone ranks highest with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry (724). Here is a breakdown of how customers ranked smartphones based on satisfaction levels:

Brand	Index Ranking
1. Apple iPhone	803
2. RIM BlackBerry	724
Industry Average	724
3. Samsung	697

4. HTC	692
5. Palm	688

Source: J.D. Power & Associates, "2009 Wireless Business Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study." (Overall smartphone index rankings based on a 1,000-point scale)

Lower Prices Drive More Consumers to Smartphones
The proportion of consumers who purchase more affordable smartphones (those costing less than $100) has significantly increased among most of the manufacturers included in the rankings, compared with the previous wave of the study six months ago according to J.D. Power & Associates. This indicates that wireless carriers are discounting their devices to attract new customers who are willing to pay for more costly service plans.

Other key findings from the study:
Among consumer smartphone owners, 22 percent want Wi-Fi capability in their next handset, while 21 percent want touch-screen capabilities and 17 percent want GPS capability.

More than 40 percent of consumer smartphone owners report entirely replacing landline calling with mobile phone calling, while only 27 percent of traditional handset owners have done the same.

Among business smartphone owners, more than one-half report downloading third-party games for entertainment, while 46 percent report downloading travel software such as maps and weather applications-indicating business users are also integrating their devices into their personal lives. In addition, nearly one-half of owners (46%) report downloading business utility applications to increase productivity.

For related content see:

J.D. Power and Associates Reports: As Customer Satisfaction with Feature-Rich Smartphones Continues to Increase, Satisfaction with Traditional Mobile Phones Declines

J.D. Power: Which Smartphones Do Biz Users Prefer?