iPhone Crushes the Competition, Survey Says

Despite stiff competition from Motorola Droid and the granddaddy of all smartphones, the RIM BlackBerry, the Apple iPhone reigned supreme on all aspects of customer satisfaction, according to a ChangeWave Research survey.

ChangeWave surveyed 1,009 consumers who bought a smartphone in the past six months to find out about their buying habits and overall feelings about their purchase. The iPhone took top honors with 77 percent of respondents saying they were “very satisfied.”

Motorola placed second with 64 percent, followed by HTC with 51 percent. Other smartphones such as RIM, Palm, LG and Samsung fared poorly. For instance, less than half of recent RIM smartphone buyers said they were very satisfied with the product.

Overall, 14 percent of respondents reported they’re likely to return or exchange their new smartphone. Broken down by manufacturer, the contrast between Apple and RIM is clear. Of those likely to return their new smartphone, 21 percent are RIM owners whereas only seven percent are iPhone owners. (Palm topped the list with 36 percent.)

ChangeWave’s survey also took a look at the impact of an iPhone on Verizon’s and Sprint’s CDMA network. Nearly one in three smartphone buyers would have bought the iPhone if it had been available from a wireless provider other than AT&T.

Analyst Drake Johnstone of Davenport & Company figures AT&T would lose 6 million, or 40 percent, of its iPhone customers if Verizon begins selling the iPhone in 2011.

Rumors have been swirling that a Verizon iPhone is in the works. Even Apple CEO Steve Jobs fanned the flames this week when asked by the Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg whether or not there would be advantages to having two different carriers in the U.S.

“There might be,” Jobs said.

Tom Kaneshige is a senior writer for CIO.com in Silicon Valley. Send him an email at tkaneshige@cio.com. Or follow him on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.