A brand new JD Power Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study for the first six months of 2012 shows Apple as the highest ranked company in customer satisfaction among smartphone manufacturers. In a move that may or may not surprise some of you, HTC edged out Samsung as the highest ranked Android manufacturer with Motorola and LG following up in third and fourth place.

The Wireless Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study measures satisfaction in several key factors in order of importance: performance (29%); ease of operation (26%); physical design (24%); and features (21%). For smartphones, the key factors are: performance (33%); physical design (23%); features (22%); and ease of operation (22%). For the eight consecutive study (it’s held twice a year), Apple ranks highest among smartphone manufacturers with a score of 849, followed by HTC at 790.

The study does find some other notable factors including nearly two in 10 current smartphone owners report experiencing a software or device malfunction. Almost 20% of all smartphone buyers purchase based on price, compared with 14% a year ago. Twenty-two percent of study respondents indicated they received their smartphone for free, up from 18% a year ago.

The study is based on the experiences reported by 8,736 smartphone owners between January and June 2012. You can read the full report at the JD Power link below.

JD Power