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Half of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners will be switching to an iPhone, says IDC survey
August 16, 2025
The troubled launch, and recall, of theSamsung Galaxy Note 7due to its exploding battery may cause many owners of the smartphone to not only switch phones but also companies. A new survey published today by the research firm IDC says that half of the Galaxy Note 7 owners they talked to “have or will choose an Apple iPhone” instead.
This new survey would seem to be very contradictory compared to recent statements made by Sprint’s CEO Marcelo Claure, who claimed most of the carrier’s Note 7 customersare turning them in for a Galaxy S7. Anotherrecent research note from BayStreetpredicted that 70% of Note 7 owners will trade it in for a Galaxy S7.
IDC says that its survey was conducted online on October 17th and 18th, four days after Samsung announced it would be ending production of the Note 7. It added:
IDC added that 17% of Note 7 owners said they would choose another Samsung smartphone. The majority of those owners will be going to a physical brick-and-mortar store to turn in the Note 7.
The good news for Samsung is that the survey indicated that the company brand itself would survive the Note 7 recall. A majority of the survey respondents said they would still consider buying non-smartphone products from the company, like TV and appliances. IDC also said that the majority of respondents had a “largely neutral to positive” response to how Samsung handled the Note 7 recall, and 13% of them had not even heard about it.
Anthony Scarsella, IDC’s research manager for Mobile Phones, believes that the Note 7 recall and its effect on Samsung can be swept away by a solid launch of the Galaxy S8 in 2017:
That certainly puts a ton of pressure on Samsung to have a successful launch of theGalaxy S8. Do you think Samsung can pull it off and make people forget about that pesky Note 7 blowing stuff up?
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