A survey conducted by CIRP for over a year to understand the dynamics of mobile users has revealed some interesting facts. The survey report included understanding the background of mobile users like age group, educational qualifications, income and previous mobile preference to draw a general inference. It becomes a really tough job for the mobile companies to market their products to users who base their decisions on various factors. Status quo, processor speed, dimensions, looks, operating software, reliability what not runs in the mind of a customer while making a decision. This survey might be of some relief to market analysts and companies to some extent.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:APPL) fan will always be a Apple fan; 42% of current Apple’s customers previously had an iPhone. One who has fallen in love with Apple can chose another brand only under ‘strange circumstances’.  Whereas this number is only 7% for world’s largest Smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005935); 43% of Samsung’s customers previously had an Android device. We can clearly see that people who had basic phones preferred Samsung over Apple, and the first timers also preferred the same. At the time of brand switching, however, Apple took almost three times (33%) users from Samsung against just 11% poached by Samsung from Apple. Apart from Inter switch offsetting Samsung took more customers from HTC, Motorola and Nokia while Apple had more customers from Black Berry.
If we look at the age group distribution of users, youth and working class professionals prefer Apple over Samsung. We could say that Status Quo offered by Apple attracts younger customers more than Samsung. As the age distributions moves towards elderly days Samsung wins in 45-64 years age group.
It’s no surprise that people who earn within the category of <25 and 25-50 prefer Samsung because it has a wide range of models from low cost to high end with all the advanced features packed in the market. Samsung has battered a mixture of products which can satisfy almost all pockets and tastes. But In case of Apple it usually has a torch bearer (iPhone 5) and the older products become less competitive with respect to features and cost when compared to phones in similar range from other companies. Lack of a product for low cost segment pushes apple behind in this context – iPhone 5C might be an answer for this.
The demographic segmentation based upon education level states that 22% of people who discontinued their education after high school prefer Samsung over Apple (18%). This trend even follows in categories where people had college education and associate degrees.  Looking at the above graph we should not refrain from stating the fact that the more you study/the bigger degree you hold, there is more probability that there is an iPhone in your hand. But Professionals seem to have stayed neutral towards both these brands.
