Market research firm Interpret recently made some discoveries about public perception of smartphones that should shock, surprise, and amaze you. The just released report, dubbed "Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share," reveals that despite being massively disadvantaged in the marketplace, Palm managed to nab a huge chunk of mindshare with the Pre -- in fact, the report suggests that the Pre is number two only to the iPhone 3GS in the metric. The study looks at the driving factors behind purchaser's decisions to buy a smartphone, narrowing down the list to three major components: belief that the phone is "smart," belief that the phone is "hip / cool," and belief that the phone will make them more productive. Rating a swath of phones (BlackBerry Curve and Storm, G1, iPhone), the report found that only the iPhone and Pre balanced the three factors in a way in which consumers felt the higher price tags were warranted. More to the point, only the Pre and the iPhone 3GS managed to strike that balance at all; offerings such as the two BlackBerrys were lopsided. There's not much more meat to the study, though it does shed some interesting light on just how Palm managed to squeeze its way back into the limelight (of course, it doesn't hurt to have a product that's actually kind of cool). Check out the whole PDF for yourself over at that read link.
Disclosure: Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg is an employee of Interpret, and worked on the study cited above.
posted September 24th 2009 8:48AM
@Josh T
The Pre is only "kind of cool"????
The big loser Windows Mobile didn't make the cut? What a big surprise?
I think that's because this survey deals with phones and not operating systems.
Do pay attention.
I'm sure Microsoft will survive considering that their brand was only just ranked as the 3rd most valuable in the world compared to Apple who only appeared somewhere in the top 20. Also, Palm have proven that it's possible to make a comeback in this business.
Hey, how about doing a piece on the pointlessness of mindshare when it doesn't translate into marketshare? I'm sure you could use Apple desktops as the prime case. (0_o)
+100
isn't that because most other smart phone manufacturers have like a hoard of other phones often with easily forgettable names?
I am a bit clueless about this post :what is it mindshare?.
Mindshare means that if you ask people about which phone/manufacturer/etc. fits this list of attributes, they are spontaneously mentioned (or at least selected from a prepared list)
BS(in a neat looking package).....
I suppose this study didn't take into account for Pre being the guilty party of USB Identify Theft? :)
I went and looked again at the Pre yesterday but the build quality and battery life have kept me from buying.
As an owner of a Pre, I'm happy to see the advertising everyone panned as "scary" because it was different actually worked.
Mindshare is the first step to marketshare.
"Across all of our verticals, Interpret hires the best and brightest custom market research professionals."
LOL
I absolutely love the Palm Pre. The only reason I don't own one now = Sprint. I actually owned the Pre for a day...but couldn't handle the horrible service and constant dropping of calls. Interested to see how the Pixi does.
You know what I'm disappointed by? Reviewers of hardware, they don't do a good enough job of reviewing a product thoroughly. I purchase the Pre because I thought Palm finally will make a decent product. I had palm devices before...they were all for work so I didn't pay for it,but did I really like it. Not really and the Pre was no different after it had been put through its paces. The device lagging and slowness is the main problem for me. And despite it having a keyboard, you weren't able to type much faster than on a virtual keyboard. The quality of the pre became apparent after some use. Loose battery, cheap slider, charger cover badly implemented, short battery life. I can't even get through the day without charging this thing. I really wanted the pre to succeed and even promoted for a while...but after some use, I change my mind. It's an OK phone, but I rather change it in for something different.
Hate all you want. This is an amazing feat for Palm, considering where they were a year or so ago. I love my Palm Pre, and I'm happy that the study could report what I've been trying to explain for several months. A phone that does everything but isn't enjoyable to use is left for geeks, flashers, and those users who need to run custom, multipurpose software on their mobile devices. Windows Mobile and Symbian provide this freedom very well. The Palm Pre and iPhone provide a simplistic, goal-oriented ways of getting work done. That's not to say that blackberries don't kick ass, nor am I saying that users can't become proficient with devices over time. I'm just saying that when you tap the screen and expect an action and it works 99% of the time, it's a lot less frustrating. Eye candy never hurts, either.
It's only (potentially) an "amazing feat" if Palm itself did NOT pay for the "study".
See comments elsewhere.
The pre blows the iphone 3g away! But everybody compares the iphone 3gs to the palm pre! With webos 1.2 an the launch of the app store! Watch out apple!Lets step back a few years when the launch of the iphone! Not many apps (like the pre) and no app store for the 1st year! There's over 200+ apps in homebrew for the pre! Palm doing good! Now if they smarting up an build webos pods an touches will hurt apple!
need more exclamation marks,.
Nokia.
Yeah. Maemo. Even Symbian.
Was this study based on music, twittering, and facebook management? I think everyone knows that blackberry is king when it comes to real time productivity.
iphones are for soccer moms and hipsters. pre and andriod are on to something though.
The 2nd chart (page 5) shows the Blackberry Storm is on par with the Palm Pre but there is no discussion at all. As other commentators noted, this is a skewed study and does not give much useful insight, nor its conclusion analytically sound.
Honestly the only thing keeping me from a Pre is my contract with AT&T, not willing to pay the ETF just yet *sigh*
They've reached #2 in mindshare by constantly associating themselves with Apple. Rubenstein's first sentence in the announcement talk was about how he used to work at Apple.
It's an impressive accomplishment, but it was accomplished in the least impressive way possible, by just saying me-too.
The Palm Pre and 3GS both have their issues. One of which is battery life. I have used both and like my Pre better, but its a personal choise. I know people who like their 3GS and would not give it up for anything. If you had a Pre for two days, you cant even comment. The battery takes two days just to get into a good charging mode. The build is also fine. I have dropped mine and had a kid step on it once. I even dropped it in the pool once. (The leather cover must have saved me on that one.) It works fine. Now there is issues with batteries shorting out and burning the phones up. My first one I had to take back because of this. But it seems like Palm has fixed this issue to some extent. Its a new phone. There are issues.
The only reason Palm has a "mindshare" is because we all keep having nightmares of that Palm girl murdering us while we sleep.
Different phones, different lifestyles.
My iPhone suits my needs and more but won't bash a Pre just because I have an iPhone.
I would't think the G1 would be that popular in mindshare, considering it was never heavily advertised like the Pre.
But I would imagine that Motorola will pull out all the stops for the Cliq.
I have a Pre and I like it a lot. I also have some friends with an iPhone and I like their phone a lot. They are both great devices and each company is pushing each other with the competition between the two. This is good for us iPhone and Pre users. IMHO there is no need to bash either phone or say one is better than the other.
A thousand bucks says that RIM will buy Palm in the future. This is a company that releases 2-3 devices, if that, a year.
Curious how all pro-Apple posts are being greyed-out recently.
Obviously someone with a grudge is going to a LOT of trouble to vote, vote, vote! :-)
Like the Germans trying to jam the BBC. It won't work, Geoerring you Nazi.
""Study shows""...right. Joshua Topolsky ♥ Rubinstein (Lowest Ranked it is;)
Mindshare is like everything else in marketing, unless it translates, big whoop ... ask a million people to name a cool Italian sports car ... Ferrari probably has a 70% mindshare over Maserati, Lamborghini and a few others but how many Ferraris are actually sold in a given year? A FEW THOUSAND. So, mindshare is only relevant when you have 20 competitors and everything has a market share in the low teens or less. This "study" does not show anything - we have no idea who they talked to? People in kansas City who are biased towards helping Sprint? People who answered their email? They basically say they talked to people who intended to buy a smartphone - well, it's safe to say that even people are almost certain to buy an iphone will look at the competition and realize, uh no ... so looking at the competition means nothing if all they end up doing is buying the iphone ... yes, the PRE is now the closest looking thing to an iphone but clearly from the cluttered screen above, they are not going to fool anyone in thinking they are getting an iphone - and again, people are not idiots - which phone features a store with a million items including movie rentals, apps and music? The PRE position - our phone will hack into another competitors software to fool it into pretending we're an iphone - EXACTLY - what does that tell the consumer - why not buy the actual IPHONE insyead of a phone that masquerades as an iphone. If the PRE were $39, okay - that's a pricing gulf where people will settle but with no price difference and Sprint. The Pre has sold about 500,000 units in 6 months and the iphone has sold about 24 million phones in the same time period. The people have voted with their wallets. Mindshare is your boss saying you did a good job but you don't get a raise.
no pre is like 4 or 5 for cop out non creative pile of plastic garbage iphone has always been the best. Just get the best.
pre sucks everyone knows this very plain n unresponsive with little apps it have. Just get the best of the best. THe iPhone and stfu people.