Nokia’s rep climbs on the back of Lumia love

Customer satisfaction with Nokia has improved, thanks to some Lumia love.

Online market research company YouGov’s smartphone mobile internet experiences tracker (SMIX) found that between September and December 2012, the number of Nokia customers that would recommend the company rose from to 45% from 32%, while detractors fell 4% to 33%.

The move to Lumia devices, which had increased from 1% to 40% since December 2011 (the range was first released in November 2011), had led to a sharp upturn in customer satisfaction ratings, YouGov said.

The company’s satisfaction ratings for attributes such as reliability, function speed and connection speeds, had increased, YouGov said.   The company ranked first for four attributes measured in the survey – battery life, camera quality, speed of call connection and the robustness of handsets.

“While these attributes are lower in importance than others they do help paint a picture of Nokia’s re-emergence.”

The launch of Lumia’s running Windows Phone 7 and 8 before Christmas helped it gain the largest improvement in customer loyalty among handset manufacturers, YouGov said, with a 12% improvement in the number of customers saying they would buy a Nokia the next time they purchased a smartphone between September and December last year, to 42%.

Apple was still king among manufacturers for loyalty ratings, however, with 80% of customers saying their next phone would be an Apple.

And a further death knell for Symbian; during the period since December 2011, those using the operating system decreased from 99% to 60%.

YouGov associate director Russell Feldman said Nokia had finally turned a corner and while still a “fair distance” behind Apple and Samsung in terms of market share and loyalty, the change in consumer perception among their customers had put them in a solid position as smartphone competition intensified.

“By increasing the number of Lumias in its base it has given their customers something worth coming back to. It is now seen by its consumers as a quality smartphone brand.”

Methodology

The total sample size was 4.169 British adults aged over 18 years old.   The survey was carried out online between 12th and 17th December 2012.