Whether from the UK, US China or France, smartphone owners all appear to have one thing in common – they prefer black to any other handset colour.
The findings of the survey, carried out by research firm Strategy Analytics, could be bad news for Microsoft. One of the standout features of its Lumia handsets is their incredibly bright colour palette of cyan, yellow, green, orange and red. It might even be a possible theory as to why the company is struggling to gain a significant foothold in the smartphone market.
When asked, over half of UK at 54 percent and French at 51 percent respondents said that black would be the preferred colour of their next handset; a sentiment shared by 48 percent of German and 45 percent of US respondents and 38 percent of those polled in China.
Strategy Analytics claims that black has topped its poll of 3,5000 smartphone owners for six years in a row. However, its lead is starting to slip and younger consumers in some countries are expressing an interest in brighter hues. Women are also more likely to consider other colours as well as black.
“Mature consumers in France, Germany and China showed slightly greater interest in black than youth in these countries, while in the UK, youth showed most interest in a black phone. Interest in this colour dropped most significantly with decreasing age in China,” Monica Wong, analyst and report author commented.
But as well as age, colour preference appears to be linked to brand. When companies known for producing phones in a range of colours were mentioned, interest in colours other than back was higher.
For example, white, the device colour popularized by Apple over the past decade or so but a colour that didn’t come to the iPhone until its third iteration, was ranked as the second most popular colour globally – between 8 and 11 percent of consumers in US, UK, France and Germany expressed a preference and it attracted a 20 percent approval rate in China.
“Handset manufacturers should continue to provide multiple colour options for consumers to choose when purchasing a new phone. Introducing a variety of colour options for a mobile phone provides the consumer with a more distinct and customized phone, with many finding interest in customization options such as that offered by the Moto X,” added Paul Brown, Director Wireless Device Lab. – Timeslive