The Apple iPhone repeatedly tops customer satisfaction survey’s in the United States, but now the company has topped that same list in Samsung’s home country of South Korea.
The study, which was conducted with the help of 44,168 smartphone owners in South Korea, found that Apple received a 52 percent overall satisfaction rating compared to Samsung’s 50 percent rating. Following in third place was South Korean manufacturer LG, which received a 46 percent ranking.
Apple also ranked higher than Samsung and LG when it came to the speed at which the company fixes devices that need repairs. So, while Apple iPhone devices are less likely to need repairs, they are also fixed faster when an issue does occur.
Apple’s iPhone product line consistently wins JD Powers’ semi-annual customer satisfaction award in the United States. In fact, Apple has won the JD Powers award nine times in a row.
The South Korean study also found that only 17 percent of Apple iPhone users reported an issue with their smartphone in the first year of ownership. In comparison, LG buyers reported problems 25 percent of the time, and Samsung customers reported issues 31 percent of the time in the first year. Pantech fared far worse at 33 percent of customers reporting an issue within the first year of new smartphone ownership.
While Samsung was only slightly behind Apple in terms of customer satisfaction, its need for repairs could finally lead the company towards better product builds. Samsung has drawn plenty of criticism for its plastic smartphone design. Samsung’s cheapened design standards may explain why the likelihood of a second repair jumps to 44 percent compared to Apple’s 25 percent.
The survey also found that battery and charging issues accounts for 20 percent of all support tickets. The next biggest issues included screen problems, hardware button malfunctions, and call quality issues which each ranged from 15 to 18 percent of all complaints.
The survey which was conducted by Quality Insights was observed with users from the ages of 14 to 64.
