RBC: Over half of smartphone buyers want iPhone

A great proportion of current smartphone shoppers have already set their minds on the iPhone 3G, says RBC Capital Markets. The investment bank says it ran a survey of some 3,600 members of its Technology Adoption Panel in the aftermath of June 9th's 3G announcement, and found that of those planning to get a smartphone in the next 90 says, 56 percent wanted the new iPhone. RBC notes that this contrasts with a study conducted in March, in which only 35 percent were expecting to buy a new iPhone.

In the June results, another 25 percent said they expected to buy a 3G "sometime in the future," more than twice the amount of a similar figure from March. Interest in Apple smartphones is also said to be at least twice that for any other company, including rival Research in Motion, whose BlackBerries attracted only 23 percent of the TAP group.

The lower shop price of the iPhone was cited as the main reason for interest, favored by 67 percent of the potential buyers. 3G broadband came in second at 63 percent, while 47 percent chose GPS, 35 percent picked enterprise e-mail, and 20 percent wanted third-party software.

More broadly significant may be that the number of people wanting to buy any smartphone has jumped by 10.5 percent, a figure which may reflect a larger potential market. The iPhone's TAM (Total Addressable Market) share is expected to shoot from its 2007 amount of 0.3 percent to 1.7 percent in 2009.

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