The smartphone features that drive Brits’ purchase choices

YouGov data reveals that nearly 90% of adults in Britain own smartphones. While the smartphone market is huge, there is also intense competition with numerous brands vying for a slice of the pie. YouGov Profiles, which continuously gathers data from adults in Britain, gives us an insight into the features that might help brands attract potential customers.

Six in ten Brits (60%) say battery life is an important consideration to them when they’re choosing a smartphone, making it comfortably the most sought-after feature in the market. In the same vein, a third of consumers also take battery charge time into consideration (34%). Several brands now offer fast charging to meet this demand.

Almost a half of consumers say that camera quality (45%) and memory size (44%) are features they value when choosing a smartphone. Value for money (35%) is rated as an important feature by about a third of adult Brits looking to pick a device. Three in ten consumers take the device’s operating system (31%) into consideration. Screen size (36%), security features (25%), size of device (24%) and screen resolution (24%) are key factors for a quarter of Brits choosing smartphones.

Drilling deeper, our data shows that the preference for certain features can make consumers more or less likely than the general population to own certain cell phone brands. For instance, 50% of those who rate security features as important considerations own an iPhone as compared to 40% of the overall population.

Similarly, two in five consumers (41%) who value the ability to ‘customize and personalize’ a device report using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone which is related to the Android’s personalisation with different widgets and homescreens (vs 30% of the overall British population). Screen resolution (36%) is another feature that makes consumers likelier to own Samsung handsets than the overall population.

In the weeks to come, we will dive deeper into the stats for individual phone brands, looking more closely at the features that make consumers more or less likely to own a specific brand. Stay tuned.

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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.