Half of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners will be switching to an iPhone, says IDC survey

The troubled launch, and recall, of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 due 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 customers are turning them in for a Galaxy S7. Another recent research note from BayStreet predicted 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:

The survey focused on three groups of consumers: current Samsung smartphone owners (507), past Samsung smartphone owners (347), and smartphone owners who have never owned the Samsung brand (228). Due to the limited installed base, just 24 Note 7 users were captured in the survey;  as such, data in those questions should be viewed as directional only.

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:

Although the recall may have an adverse impact on the brand in the short term, the truth is that Samsung remains the clear market leader in the worldwide smartphone market. Moving forward, Samsung will need to put the Note 7 to rest as quickly as possible and focus all efforts on producing a stellar Galaxy S8 come next spring. If successful, consumers will quickly forget the Note 7 fiasco if the upcoming S8 can deliver on all fronts.

That certainly puts a ton of pressure on Samsung to have a successful launch of the Galaxy S8.  Do you think Samsung can pull it off and make people forget about that pesky Note 7 blowing stuff up?