Market information company J.D. Power has released a new customer satisfaction survey that shows that satisfaction is increasing rapidly for users of smartphones, while users of traditional mobile phones are becoming less satisfied.

Based on reports from over 16,000 mobile phone users, the data also highlights that iPhone owners are the most satisfied of smartphone users, whereas LG phones rate highest among traditional mobile phones.

J.D. Power ran three customer satisfaction surveys: one for consumer smartphone users, one for business smartphone users, and one for traditional mobile phone users.

Over the past six months, satisfaction among consumer smartphone owners has increased by 14 index points (on a 1,000-point scale), whereas among traditional mobile phone owners overall satisfaction has declined by six index points, most likely as a result of “heightened awareness among traditional mobile phone owners of advanced features available on smartphones”, according the J.D. Power.

Satisfaction among business owners has increased by 43 index points from 2008.

Consumer smartphone users

• The key factors measured for were: Operation (30%), Operating system (22%), features (21%), physical design (18%), and battery (9%).
• The overall ratings in this category:

  
  Apple performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design.

• 22 percent want Wi-Fi capability in their next handset, 21 percent want touch-screen capabilities, and 17 percent want GPS capability.

Business smartphone users

• The key factors measured for were: Ease of operation (29%), Operating system (23%), physical design (21%), features (16%), , and battery (11%).
• The overall ratings in this category:

  
  

• more than one-half report downloading third-party games for entertainment, 46 percent report downloading travel software such as maps and weather applications, and 46% report downloading business utility applications to increase productivity

Traditional mobile phone users

• The key factors measured for were: Operation (30%), physical design (30%), features (20%), , and battery (20%).
• The overall ratings in this category:

  
  

• 27 percent of traditional handset ownersreport entirely replacing landline calling with mobile phone calling, while more than 40 percent of consumer smartphone owners have done the same.