In another blow for the embattled PC industry, a new survey shows many PC makers in Australia suffer weak brand loyalty and, in some cases, negative net promoter scores.
The figures come from an Effective Measure survey of 7000 consumers across Australia, Malaysia, India, UAE and South Africa.
The survey showed that, aside from Apple, very few Australians describe themselves as being either “loyal” or “pretty loyal” to a brand.
While 14.7% of Apple users are loyal to their Macs, just 2.5% of HP users, 1.9% of Dell users, 1.4% of Acer users, and just .9% of Lenovo users say the same about their brands.
More alarmingly, while Apple records a net advocacy score in Australia of 44.1 and Acer score 17.9, the figures drop to just 2.1 for Dell, -0.9 for HP and -7.7 for Lenovo.
The survey also asked consumers attitudes towards the quality and modernity of various computer brands.
Consumers generally perceive Apple as being both high quality and modern, while Lenovo – the parent company of smartphone manufacturer Motorola – is perceived as being low-quality but modern.
In contrast, the survey shows Australian consumers perceive the Dell, Acer and HP brands as being high-quality but out-of-date.
Interestingly, the survey also shows Australians using more than one computer brand are more likely to use a Mac and a PC than they are to use two PC brands.
The biggest overlap between users of two different computer brands in Australia is between users of Dell and Apple products.
In total, around 8.8% of Australian Mac users also regularly use a Dell, above the percentage of Mac users also using a computer made by HP (6.9%), Acer (5.8%), or Lenovo (4.3%).
In contrast, the most common overlap between users of two PC brands is HP and Dell (7.7%), with just 2.7% of Lenovo users also use a computer made by Acer.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
