Switching behavior between phone brands of the Dutch

Chord Diagram

This chord diagram shows relationships in terms of switching behaviour among phone brands.

The chords are directed: for example, while 8.7% of respondents who now have a Samsung used to have a Nokia, only 1.2% have the opposite; 1.2% now have a Nokia and used to have a Samsung phone.

The thickness of chords between brands encodes the percentage of respondents that switched between two brands: thicker chords represent a higher percentage of respondents that made that switch.

This diagram reveals asymmetries: if a chord is tapered, there are more respondents switching to one brand from the other than vice versa.

Mouse over a brand name to focus on switching behaviour to and from other brands concerning that specific brand.

While almost everyone in the Netherlands has a phone, many consumers switch to a new phone whenever their contract allows it. But how do people switch? And how does this differ per brand? To understand the complete flows of people switching phone brands (or staying loyal) we have analysed the connection between the respondent's current and previous main phone brand by visualizing the data in the Chord Diagram above. The chord diagram's outer ring represents the current main brand shares of all the respondents while the chords help to show what the brand of the previous was used to be.

EXPLAINING THE CHORD DIAGRAM

The circle is split up into 8 brands with the arc length of each group scaled to the current brand’s market share. The percentages along the outer rim of the chord Diagram give the share-per-brand. This shows that Samsung dominates the installed base with a 38% share, Apple is 2nd with 19% and Nokia is 3rd with 16%.

The chords between the arcs visualize the switching behaviour of the respondents between brands in both directions. For example, the big dark blue chord connecting Samsung and Nokia in the lower left section shows the part of respondents that moved from Samsung to Nokia and from Nokia to Samsung. The figure shows that Nokia has lost its installed base share to Samsung, as 8.7% of all respondents that used to own a Nokia now own a Samsung. At the same time, only 1.2% of the Nokia owners previously owned a Samsung.

The color of the chord shows which brand has been the net gainer, thus the brand that managed to gain more customers from the connected brand than it has lost to this brand. With this in mind, we can see that Apple is a true net gainer; all its chords are 'Apple grey'. Even more so, besides the chord to Samsung, all chords at Apple are extremely thin at the other side, thus Apple has lost virtually no customers to other brands except Samsung.

There are also chords that connect each brand to itself. These 'hill-like' chords represent the respondents who did not switch brands, but stayed loyal to their brand.

Hover over a brand name or arc to see only the chords of that brand highlighted and an extra piece of information regarding that brand to the right of the Chord Diagram.

Note: This analysis refers only to respondents' main phone

INSIGHTS FROM THE 2014 GLOBAL MOBILE CONSUMER SURVEY - NETHERLANDS EDITION

When studying the flows between brands we can come to several interesting conclusions:

• Apple and Samsung are capturing users from mainly Nokia and Other
• Apple is losing few users, except to Samsung; even so, the number gained is twice the number lost
• HTC is acquiring users from Nokia and LG, yet losing users to Samsung and Huawei
• Nokia is still acquiring more users from Other than it loses
• Huawei stands out as a new brand that is gaining small numbers of users from all brands, particularly Samsung. Huawei reported 120% growth in handset shipments in Europe¹ and has become the 3rd brand in worldwide shipments, leaving Nokia, HTC and LG behind²

COMPARING 2014 TO LAST YEAR'S RESULTS

Since this is the 2nd year that we have created a Chord Diagram from the GMCS data, we can compare the years to find changes that have occurred since last year. Below you can see the Chord diagram from last year on the left and the one from 2014 (thus the same as the big one at the top of the page) on the right:

Several points stand out by comparing these two Chord Diagrams

• Blackberry has decreased its share to only 1.5% and is now added to the "Other" category, while Huawei has grown significantly (from 0.2% last year to 2.4% in 2014) to take its place
• Apple has grown its share of being the main phone of the respondents from 13% to almost 20%. More so, its share of people remaining loyal to the iPhone is also increasing
• Nokia keeps losing share, from 20% last year to 15% this year (of which 12% is a non-smartphone Nokia), thus losing its place as 2nd biggest brand to Apple
• Nokia, Samsung, Sony and HTC have all lost share since last year, while Apple, Huawei and more smaller brands in Other have grown
• Very interestingly, although shares among brands have shifted, the most interesting flows from last year show less difference. Apple is still taking more clients from every other brand than losing to them. Nokia is still losing its biggest share by far to Samsung and only winning a bit from the "Other" category. However, in 2014 Samsung is taking more clients from HTC while HTC had a net win last year

FINAL NOTE

These examples are a handful of the interesting facts that can be gained from the study. I encourage you to study the chord diagram by yourself to find even more insights and play with the interactive version. Finally, this analysis is but a small piece of the total report based on the yearly Global Mobile Consumer Survey - Netherlands Edition that Deloitte performed. Please feel free to contact any of the team members for more information or the complete report and also how you can discuss this with your clients.

Analysis and Visualization created by Nadieh Bremer. See her other blogs on Visual Cinnamon

(1) https://www.zdnet.com/huawei-sees-massive-handset-growth-outside-china-7000032074/
(2) IDC 2014 Weighted Base: All adults 18-75 who have a phone or smartphone (n=1846)

Survey
Deloitte has carried out the Global Mobile Consumer Survey – an annual snapshot of the mobile consumer, based on insights from more than 37.000 respondents in more than 22 countries. This analysis is based on the Dutch mobile market anno 2014, based on over 2000 respondents from the Netherlands, where this sample is nationally representative. All research has been undertaken via online research. Fieldwork took place between May to June 2014. The questions for this survey were written by Deloitte member firms. The multinational online research program was managed by Ipsos MORI.

Project team
Stephen Ward (sponsoring partner), Gagandeep Sethi (Project Manager), Arseni Storojev, Remco Gaykema, Jessica Abad Kelly, Morris Boermann & Nadieh Bremer