Apple, Samsung tie for first in US phone satisfaction survey

Apple and Samsung have tied for first place in an annual customer satisfaction survey among U.S. phone owners, with Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 ranked as the top-rated device.

The two companies achieved a score of 81, thanks to Samsung climbing 1% versus the year prior, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index. The group interviewed 19,658 people between April 2018 and March 2019 to generate this year's results.

The Galaxy Note 9 managed a score of 86, compared to 83 apiece for the iPhone X, 8 Plus and SE. Those iPhones tied with the Moto G and Samsung's Galaxy J7 Prime and S8+, though Samsung was also burdened with the worst-scoring product, the Galaxy J3 at 77 points. Samsung rarely advertises its J-series devices in North America, merely offering them as budget alternatives.

Note 9 owners were fond of its 6.4-inch screen and diverse capabilities, ACSI said.

"As Samsung's newly released Galaxy S10 5G smartphone hits the market, it will be interesting to see how this first step and the bigger 5G rollout impacts both customer perceptions and the ACSI rankings next year," wrote ACSI managing director David VanAmburg.

A recurring theme among customers was that while they were pleased with messaging functions on phones, they continued to be disappointed by battery life. Even the iPhone XR can't last much more than a day.

11 Comments

Kuyangkoh 838 comments · 7 Years

About 5 years ago

Darn, where’s Hauwie in the survey?? They are the best even the ceo daughter carries them....oh wait my bad :-(

chasm 3592 comments · 10 Years

About 5 years ago

The S9 is a pretty good phone — for Android — and in terms of hardware I’d rate it very good. But ... where’s the S10 and the Google Pixel? The S10 line and the Google Pixel 3 have been available since February, and the Google Pixel 2 (still widely sold) for more than a year before that. Funny how they’re not even mentioned — or maybe they’re crappier than I thought they were ...

I would add that it seems like the key feature that drives people to like the S9 better than comparable Apple models is the screen size, at least according to the report. I can certainly say that I’m enjoying my 6.1-inch iPhone XR very much, having stepped up from an iPhone 8 (which feels “small” now). I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised — the “Plus” sizes of iPhone are usually the most popular variations, and now that I have a “big” phone myself I’m sort of seeing how it may prevent tablet sales, especially on the Android side of the fence. I still love my iPad Pro however, and the forthcoming iPadOS is likely to do nothing but reinforce that.

1STnTENDERBITS 460 comments · 8 Years

About 5 years ago

chasm said:

The S9 is a pretty good phone — for Android — and in terms of hardware I’d rate it very good. But ... where’s the S10 and the Google Pixel? The S10 line and the Google Pixel 3 have been available since February, and the Google Pixel 2 (still widely sold) for more than a year before that. Funny how they’re not even mentioned — or maybe they’re crappier than I thought they were ...

It's not really that funny considering that: The group interviewed 19,658 people between April 2018 and March 2019 to generate this year's results. I think we can be fairly certain phones like the S10, XR, XS/Max, Pixel 3a will be on next year's survey. It looks like the survey runs a year behind current models. To me that seems more likely than the phones being crappier than you thought they were.