40% of Blackberry owners would prefer an iPhone

Paul Nesbitt

Nearly 40% of Blackberry owners would prefer an iPhone and nearly a third want an Android-based smartphone as their next handset, according to market researcher, Crowd Science.

If the research is true, then Research In Motion's plans to offer a more consumer friendly BlackBerry OS can't come soon enough.

By contrast, Crowd Science found that around 90% of iPhone and Android phone owners intended to stick with their respective platforms.

'Asked specifically if they'd swap their present phone for Google's new Android-based Nexus One, 32% of Blackberry users said "yes," compared with just 9% of iPhone users. This figure zoomed to 60% for users of smartphones not made by Blackberry or Apple,' the Crowd Science report said.
'These results show that the restlessness of Blackberry users with their current brand hasn't just been driven by the allure of iPhone,' said Crowd Science CEO, John Martin. 'Rather, Blackberry as a brand just isn't garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems.'
Crowd Science's survey quizzed 1,140 respondents, of whom 44% used a 'regular cell phone not a smartphone.' 17% of respondents used an iPhone , followed by Blackberry users (15%), Nokia smartphones (10%), Windows Mobile (4%), Android (3%) and Palm (2%).