iPhone is the Most Desired Smartphone in Emerging Markets

According to a recent poll carried out by Upstream and Ovum in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and Vietnam, asking customers about their smartphone of choice, Apple’s iPhone has been ranked as the most desirable smartphone with a 32% share, AppleInsider reports. Samsung came in at second spot with 29%, followed by Nokia in third with 13%.

Apple

The results of the survey suggest that consumer desire for Samsung phones in emerging markets fell 32% to 29% in 2013, while Apple surged from 21% to 32%. The report also highlights that although many customers in emerging markets cannot afford an iPhone, they would prefer to buy one if they could. Android devices however were found to be three times more popular in terms of actual usage than handsets running iOS.

“Apple has taken particular interest in emerging markets, particularly China, Brazil and India, in recent years, with the belief that most future smartphone growth will come from developing nations. That helped lead speculation that Apple might develop a new low-cost smartphone to address the low end of the market, but the company instead last year released the iPhone 5c, which turned out to be a mid-range handset still out of the price range of many customers.”

Apple’s control of the high end smartphone market also makes it dominant in profit share, earning 87.4% of global handset profits in the December quarter.

P.S. - Like our news? Support the site with a coffee/beer. Or shop with our Amazon link. We use affiliate links when possible--thank you for supporting independent media.