Palm Treo More Popular Than Blackberry?

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A new marketing research report on the smartphone market looked at brand loyalty and online popularity of Palm Treo, BlackBerry, HP iPAQ and Motorola Q devices.

Brandimensions searched over 150 million Internet sites and analyzed relevant consumer comments posted online between April 2005 and February 2006, specific to the smartphone market. The results conclude that while BlackBerry has the largest market share in this segment, it lacks a strong brand loyalty among its customers. Overall, consumers felt that Treo was a superior device compared to BlackBerry, citing greater functionality including camera and video playback.

To produce the report, Brandimensions captured online discussion and sentiment generated by users of the most talked about smartphones, using its proprietary technology engine that has mapped smartphone social networks on the Internet.

Key findings in the report:

* While BlackBerry is the market share leader in the smartphone segment, websites devoted to Treo generate more discussion and are larger than their BlackBerry counterparts.

* Overall, the total impact of the RIM lawsuit on the BlackBerry brand appears to be small -- however, people believe that RIM mishandled the lawsuit.

* Consumer sentiment is higher for Treo, posing a threat to the BlackBerry brand, which ranked last in consumer sentiment. This indicates that users may be more inclined to use Treo, especially with the potential Blackberry service shutting down.

* While it generated a small portion of discussion, HP's iPAQ is a favorite among its users as well as among general users, due in large part to IPAQ's Wi-Fi capability -- a feature that other smartphones may not have.

* The Motorola Q generated the least amount of buzz but was perceived very well by consumers as a result of its styling. Given Motorola's presence in the wireless communications market, the Q could present a threat to both BlackBerry and Treo.

What isn't noted, however, is the fact Blackberry's perform a different function and does not focus on multimedia items that some respondant's were so fond of.