Buyer Survey: Handsets just as important as carrier

More than one out of every two wireless shoppers believes the name on the device is just as important as the name of the carrier providing it--if not more so. A survey released by Google showed further that 24 percent said their decision was solely based on the handset and 28 percent said that both the handset and the carrier were involved in a decision.

Carriers, who are spending big bucks putting out messages about network reliability and service should also know that 60 percent of shoppers searching online for phones use terms related to the OEM as opposed to the carrier or non-branded items, the survey said.

Finally, here's one more point that should interest carriers. More than a quarter of mobile phone subscribers shop online to avoid salespeople and three-quarters of in-store buyers conduct research on-line almost as heavily as online buyers.

For more:
- see this article [1]

Related story:
Just how powerful is the Google [2] brand, anyway?