November 3rd, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »
According to research firm Canalys, consumers in Germany, France and the UK clearly voice their preference for Touchscreens in their next mobile phones.
From the 3.000 questioned consumers, 38% said they like a finger controlled touch screen in their next device. 16% preferred a stylus though. Together that’s 54%. From the consumers that already own a touch screen phone, only 47% will stick with it. These where mostly owners of HTC and Apple phones. SonyEricsson has the worst experience according to the survey. Consumers that own a Stylus based device are the least interested in finger controlled touch screens.
“The results suggest that consumer awareness of touchscreen UIs is very high, driven by the marketing of Apple, Samsung and others, and there is no doubt that the changes in device design we have seen over the past couple of years have produced some very exciting products,” said Pete Cunningham, senior analyst at Canalys, “But it is also apparent that, with experience, a significant proportion of users have not been totally won over by some of these devices. This is to be expected, as it is quite a big shift for many users to make, but a poor experience with one touchscreen device may dissuade users from trying another one in the future and it is imperative that vendors focus on usability and practicality as well as visual appeal, and continue to enhance their interfaces. There has always been a question mark over how well touchscreens would work among an SMS-centric audience and the results indicate the transition has not been totally smooth.”
“We are at a critical time in the mobile industry,” commented Canalys VP Mike Welch. “The user awareness and interest is clearly there, and the opportunity to drive a mass change in user interaction, and hence device capabilities and the opening up of new application and service revenue streams, is tantalisingly close. But only if users continue to embrace these new UIs once they have tried them. This is the new arena in which mobile vendors must differentiate themselves, and the user experience battle will spread to other product categories, such as netbooks.”
