J.D. Power lauds Sony Ericsson

J.D. Power announced Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications’ handsets scored highest in overall customer satisfaction among U.S. and Canadian consumers in the consumer research firm’s latest survey.
SEMC ranked highest in features, battery life, physical design, operation and durability among U.S. consumers.
Najmi Jarwala, president of Sony Ericsson North America, said that the results reflected SEMC’s “strong commitment to the North American market,” where it has struggled to gain significant market share. SEMC is a GSM-only handset vendor that has been increasingly successful in placing handsets in AT&T Mobility’s portfolio, North America’s largest wireless carrier.
However, J.D. Power also reported in October that consumer satisfaction with the carrier’s walk-in, wireless retail experience is low and eroding.
The market research firm’s handset satisfaction survey found that, after SEMC, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Motorola Inc. scored better than the industry average, and that Nokia Corp., LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and other vendors scored slightly below the industry average.
J.D. Power earlier this month found that Research In Motion Ltd. topped user satisfaction surveys for smartphone users.
J.D. Power also reported that the users of advanced feature phones were increasingly using revenue-generating services, adding an average of $14 to monthly revenues per user compared with users of lesser-featured handsets. J.D. Power said feature phone users were more likely to use mobile e-mail, text messaging, download music or send pictures, resulting in an average monthly bill of $77, versus $63 for users who don’t actively use the cited features and services.
This pattern represents a boon to handset vendors, which can sell higher-margin feature phones, and to network operators seeking higher revenues per user, according to J.D. Power.