Some more bad news for RIMM…. On October 29th, MKM Intelligence Community analyst Wendy Farina has published the first in a series of surveys (> 1,000 U.S. consumers) seeking to gauge purchase intentions on hardware (PC/tablet/ smartphone) and OS (Windows 8/Android/iOS). A smaller percentage of U.S. consumers plan to buy Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) and Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) smartphones than own them now.
Thirty-seven percent of the survey respondents own a smart phone, which is roughly in line with industry analyst data. In the MKM survey, 6.3% of respondents own a Blackberry smartphone and 2.6% own a Nokia smartphone. By operating system, 6.6% say they now use BlackBerry, 8.4% use Windows Phone and 0.3% run Symbian. 18.5% of respondents say they plan to purchase a new smartphone in the next six months. Of this group only 4.8% say they plan to buy a Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) product and 1.1% report they plan to buy Nokia. We see it as negative for both companies that the near-term purchase intention percentages are lower than the current ownership percentages.
Nokia shows a small positive bump in smartphones purchased in the last six months but not in buying intentions for the next six months
13.9% of survey respondents have purchased a new smartphone in the last six months. 4.2% of these people bought Blackberries and 3.5% bought Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) smartphones. Nokia’s 3.5% share of recent purchases is higher than its total 2.6% smartphone ownership share. However, only 1.1% of consumers in the survey plan to buy Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) smartphones in the next six months, which we see as disappointing right in front of the new WP8 Lumia product launches. 7.7% of the consumers who made smartphone purchases in the past six months bought Windows Phone products, but less than half of these people choose the Nokia brand according to the data.
The Windows Phone operating system in garnering consumer interest but Nokia is not
As mentioned above, 18.5% of respondents say they plan to purchase a new smartphone in the next six months. 25.4% of these say they will switch to a new operating system. 12.5% of the likely switchers report they will move to the Windows Phone OS. This compares favorably to the 8.4% of smartphone users that now run Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Windows Phone and the 6.3% of likely switchers that use Windows Phone. However, again, only 1.1% of consumers planning to buy smartphones in the next six months say they will buy a Nokia phone, which indicates that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Windows Phone models from the likes of Samsung, HTC Corp (TPE:2498) and LG stand to gain some market share.
More people switching from than to Blackberry.
According to the survey, Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM)’s Blackberry has roughly 6% market share of the U.S. smartphone market. Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM)’s share of smartphones purchased in the last six months appears to be slightly lower at 4%-5% and about 5% of respondents that plan a purchase in the next six months say they are likely to go with Blackberry. However, when it comes to switching operating systems, Blackberry is clearly a source of new users for other platforms. Of the people that plan to switch to a new OS within the next six months, 12.5% are currently Blackberry users and only 2.1% plan to switch from another OS to Blackberry.
Disclosure: No position in any securities mentioned
