Survey: Android sees big gain among prospective smartphone purchasers

One of our favorite hobbies these days is to collect statistical data about Android (we also collect spores, mold and fungus), and here's an interesting specimen from ChangeWave.

A survey of 4,068 people conducted Dec. 9-14 found that 21 percent of those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days would prefer Android. That's 15 percentage points higher than in September -- the largest gain among the major smartphone operating systems. (RIM was the other winner, increasing 1 percentage point over September's survey.)

Other interesting facts:

  • 13 percent said they'd prefer a Motorola Android phone, compared to 9 percent for an HTC phone. (In September, it was 5 percent for HTC versus 1 percent for Motorola. (Of course, that was before the Droid line was launched on Verizon.)
  • Apple, RIM and Palm all saw declines in likely future purchases.
  • Android was ranked second (72 percent) among customers who said there were "very satisfied" with their current cell phone. (iPhone 77 percent; BlackBerry 41 percent; Palm OS/webOS 33 percent; Windows Mobile 25 percent)

Check out the whole breakdown from ChangeWave.

Phil Nickinson