Global – Which factors play the least important role when buying phones?
Mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives over the past two decades. And while consumers have a long list of what they want in their devices, what is the factor that matters the least to them?
YouGov recently polled consumers in 18 international markets to find out. A quarter of consumers identify product packaging as the least important, and nearly a fifth (18%) say that it’s the brand. Price (15%), quality (13%), and environmental impact (14%) are ranked as the least important factors by more than one in 10 people. Appearance (7%) and durability/disclaimer information (8%) are at the bottom of the list for less than a tenth of the people.
Except for Indonesia (12%) and India (13%), a fifth of Asian consumers say that environmental impact is the least important factor when purchasing mobile phones (19-25%). Almost two-fifths of Hong Kong consumers believe product packaging is unimportant, the highest proportion among all markets. The brand is the least important factor in the Indian (33%) and the UAE markets (29%). Almost half of all Indians (49%) say that either price or quality is the least important factor when they buy a phone, suggesting that simple utility may be more important for these buyers.
A third of European consumers say product packaging is the least important factor when purchasing cell phones (30-35%), but that’s less in Spain (25%) and France (17%). The price of a mobile phone is least important to one-fifth of French consumers, the highest among 18 markets. About one-tenth of European consumers rank brand (13-18%) and quality (9-15%) as the least important.
Product packaging is least important to about a quarter of Canadians and Americans (23% and 24%, respectively), but in Mexico, the proportion falls to about a fifth (19%). In Canada, a tenth (11%) consider appearance to be the least important - the highest among all markets.
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Methodology
YouGov RealTime Omnibus provides quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 515 and 2082 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in July 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov RealTime Omnibus.