The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and its subsequent two recalls and indefinite pulling from the market have been a major story over the last few weeks. So much so that even in the aftermath of the event(s), many are still trying to predict and understand what will be the effects of such an unprecedented recall. Will the Samsung brand get past this and regain consumer trust? Will the Galaxy Note range make a triumphant return next year, or a return at all? Well, if you believe a report which came through this week based on data accumulated from BayStreet, about 70-percent of those who bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 are planning to stick with Samsung. Which meant 30-percent were not and of those, 15-percent were likely to leave Android altogether and go to iOS for their premium smartphone fix.
Now, a new report and data set has emerged and this one paints a slightly different picture. The data comes from a poll by the IDC and says that a much larger number of Galaxy Note 7 owners will move not just away from Samsung but also away from Android, to iOS. Although, it does need to be made clear that the implications of drawing any firm conclusions on this particular poll is debatable. Firstly though, the main headline points of the poll. According to the details from the sample, half of Galaxy Note 7 owners said they will be (or already have) replaced their recalled phone with “an Apple iPhone”. The much lower figure of 17-percent said they would (or already have) replace their recalled phone with another Samsung smartphone. In terms of how Samsung has handled the recall process in general, the consensus among those polled viewed Samsung’s response as “neutral to positive”. What is of interest though, in spite of the heightened media pressure surrounding the two recalls, 13-percent of those polled noted that they “hadn’t heard about the recall” at all.
Now that the headline aspects of the data have been explained, here is the background for the data which certainly needs to be taken into consideration. Firstly, IDC does note that the data is based on information collected from 1,082 consumers in the U.S. That number can further be broken down into three categories. The first category which comprised of nearly half (507) of those surveyed are current Samsung smartphone owners. The second category represented those who do not own a Samsung smartphone but had owned one in the past – this group accounted for 347 people. The remaining 228 participants in the data were those who have never owned a Samsung-branded smartphone before. However, the big sticking point with this poll is that of the user data, only 24 data samples were from actual Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners. Therefore, this data and related information is only really relevant to twelve of those twenty four people noting that they would move to iOS. With that in mind and with the IDC stating that the “data in those questions should be viewed as directional only”, take what you will from this study.