Windows Phone 7 Users Happier Than Android, RIM Users

If Microsoft can translate user satisfaction with Windows Phone 7 into real sales, it’s going to wipe the floor with most of the competition and live up to the prediction IDC made about its position come 2015. A survey finds WP7 users are second in user satisfaction behind iOS, a remarkable comeback.

A survey by ChangeWave of 4,163 consumers – with 89 percent in the U.S. and 11 percent outside the U.S. – put iOS users at the top of customer satisfaction at 70 percent. Windows mobile overall is just 27 percent, but for customers of just Windows Phone 7, satisfaction is 57 percent.

The screwball overall number is due to Windows Phone 7 being counterbalanced by a very low 14 percent satisfaction rating for old versions of Windows Mobile. Android users were at 50 percent, surprising given how many units it’s shipping, and RIM’s BlackBerry was last or next-to-last at 26 percent, depending on how you slice it with Windows Phone.

Windows Phone 7 hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. Microsoft has lost market share since the phone’s release. Even Steve Ballmer had to admit at the Worldwide Partner Conference “We’ve gone from very small to very small but it’s been a heck of a year” and “We know we’ve got a lot to do.”

 Interest in Windows Phone is high, and there is also great interest in Mango, the next version of Windows Phone. So the opportunity is there.

RIM’s numbers, as the chart shows, have been plummeting, from a high of 55 percent just three years ago to 26 percent now.

Apple continues to gain momentum, this time thanks to its iCloud service to store music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, e-books. When surveyed, 29 percent of Apple customer said they were more likely to to buy Apple products in the future, and 13 percent of non-Apple owners said iCloud was making them into potential Apple customers.

Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) planning on buying a smart phone in the next 90 days say they’ll get an iPhone, a 1 percent increase since ChangeWave’s last survey in March.

The biggest loser in all of this appears to be Motorola. It relied rather heavily on Verizon, and once Verizon picked up the iPhone, Android sales slid. ChangeWave said Motorola is now seeing a loss of market share at least partially attributable to the Verizon iPhone.