Saturday, August 13, 2011

Android Return Rates 30% to 40%?

As mobile devices have gotten more powerful, they also have gotten more complicated, despite constant efforts to simplify user interfaces. And it seems highly likely complexity is leading consumers to become frustrated with new devices, causing high "return" rates that raise mobile service provider operating costs, in addition to causing troublesome end user experience.

The return rate on some Android devices is between 30 and 40 percent, in comparison to the iPhone 4′s 1.7 percent return rate as of Antennagate in 2010," TechCrunch says. Read more here.


Separately, one iPhone retailer has claimed 30 percent of all iPhones endedup returned, at least in the earlier days of iPhone availability. “It’s not because the phone is defective, it’s because people find it complicated,” said Philip Christopher, PCD CEO. adding that 25 percent of all phones end up returned because people find them too complicated. More here.


Research n Motion's BlackBerry "Storm" likewise was said to have experienced high return rates in 2008.
Read more here.


Another survey by WDS Global in 2005 found that one in seven mobile phones (about 14 percent) are returned by subscribers as faulty. In 63 percent of cases, technicians could not actually find anything wrong with the devices. Read more.

Despite major advances in "ease of use," it does appear that smart phones still are complex enough as to befuddle many buyers, causing high return rates and customer friction, as well as raising service provider operating costs. 


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