Samsung is now the leader in customer loyalty in most of the categories that it competes in, including laptops and smartphones where Apple had a stronghold.
For laptops, Samsung and Apple were tied, according to the Brand Keys’ 2013 Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index, released today. But Samsung led in flat screen TVs, and, in perhaps the biggest shocker, beat out Apple for consumer loyalty in smartphones.
“This is the first year that Samsung beat out Apple in smartphones,” Brand Keys president Robert Passikoff told me this afternoon. “When Apple was number one, everyone said, ‘Well sure, it’s Apple.’ But the fact is that Samsung always had a larger share of the marketplace.”
The Brand Keys customer loyalty index surveys 39,000 people, making it generalizable to the entire United States population with 95 percent confidence. “It’s not terrible to be number two,” Passikof said. “But in both cases I think consumers are looking for higher degrees of innovation. It was only after Samsung and other companies came out with smaller tablets that Apple brought out the iPad mini. It was only in reaction.”
Asus followed Samsung and Apple as the laptop vendor with the third-most-loyal customers, with Toshiba and Sony right on its heels. In smartphones, LG took third place after Samsung and Apple, followed by Nokia and Sony, who were tied for fourth. Motorola, HTC, and BlackBerry rounded out the top eight.
Credits: VentureBeat
