The Daily Mail has reported on a study by We Are Social which has examined Twitter, blogs, and forums following the flagship launches of the four major smartphone platforms: the Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z10, Nokia Lumia 920 and of course, the iPhone 5. The study takes a look at the conversations regarding these 4 phones after their release, including both complaints, discussions about new features, and general brand appeal.
While the article actually focusses mostly on the iPhone 5’s successes and failures, there can be some information about the Galaxy S4’s reception to be gleaned. Namely, that 56% of the conversations regarding the Galaxy S4 were discussion the new and different features of the phone, which I guess is to be expected considering that the Galaxy S4 is the latest phone to suffer Samsung-Featuritis. Of note is also the fact that only 11% of comments about Samsung have been made with a negative connotation, lower than the three other manufacturers. However, while 20% of comments about the iPhone 5 were negative, Apple still does apparently retain the highest brand appeal of the 4 with 42%, narrowly ahead of both Blackberry and Nokia.
Obviously there’s some interesting data in this study, however, it would be dangerous to take it just on face value. Obviously the iPhone 5 is an insanely popular phone with around 55 million handsets sold worldwide, so it stands to reason that a larger sample of people would have more to complain about when the phone starts to age. Similarly, the study might not consider the fact that certain groups might be more vocal about new features or complaints, and others might not want to compliment or denigrate vocally at all. That’s not to say the information is useless, because it does serve as an interesting indicator of what brands and phones people talk about the most.
I’d also like to point out my confusion at the article’s comment that the Galaxy S4 “has so far failed to emulate the S3’s resounding success” just days after it was reported that Samsung has sold 20 million Galaxy S4 handsets in its first 2 months, destroying the record set by the Galaxy S3. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.
What do you make of these studies? Think they hold any merit? Let us know what you in the comments below.
Source: The Daily Mail via Phandroid
