More than half of phone buyers still looking at iPhone

Interest in Samsung phones sees spike after Galaxy Nexus release with Ice Cream Sandwich OS

Just a few months after the iPhone 4S as made its way through the marketplace, more than half of the people, in North America, that are shopping for a smartphone, are thinking about an iPhone.

The latest survey out on Monday, by ChangeWave Research, looked at 4,000 respondents to see what phones they want and how they feel about other phones in the market.

The iPhone was the most desired phone by respondents, with 54% saying they were planning on purchasing one in the next 90 days -- this is, however, down 11 percentage points from September. 

Two other phone developers saw a droop in demand since the survey was conducted in September, including a three percentage point drop to 3% for HTC phones and a one percentage point drop to 2% for RIM/Balckberry.

Samsung and Motorola both saw an increase in interest to buy one of their phones in the next 90 days. Samsung saw an eight percentage point jump to 13% of respondents planning on buying a phone and Motorola saw a two percentage point increase to 7%. 

While Apple has a single phone approach that they update the technology on, Samsung has a broad catalog of Android phones that consumers have been responding well too -- including the popular Galaxy line.

The just released Galaxy Nexus – the first 4G phone running on Android'd Ice Cream Sandwich OS – appears to be a major factor in the increase of interest in their products, according to the survey.  

Last week, Samsung estimated it sold about 32 million smart phones in Q4, up from an estimated 27.8 million smart phones in Q3. Samsung's record-breaking Q4 earnings will overtake their previous best quarter ever, posted in Q2 2010, at $4.5 billion. The company had only started selling mobile phones in 2010 but has quickly overtaken the market.

In previous surveys, Samsung has maintained a steady 4%-6% marketshare and this is the first survey showing such a noticeable spike in interest.

Research in Motion (RIM) has fallen another percentage point, reaching the lowest point it has ever hit in the survey's history -- at 2%. RIM peaked back in September 2008, but has fallen in nine of the past 12 surveys.

Customer Satisfaction

It also appears that Apple is able to tout the most customer satisfaction for its product users out of the seven manufacturers looked at.

Two-thirds of iPhone owners responded that they are 'very satisfied' with their phone. Nearly half (47%) of Samsung and HTC owners felt 'very satisfied with their mobile devices. Motorola came in fourth place with a 45% return of 'very satisfied' customers.

And LG, Nokia and RIM rounded out the bottom of the chart with fewer than a third of its users claiming to be 'very satisfied' with their devices (31%, 23% and 22%, respectively.)