In summary:
- Macworld reports Apple’s customer satisfaction score dropped to 80%, falling behind Samsung’s 81% in the American Customer Satisfaction Index study for the first time since iPhone 11.
- The decline appears linked to new AI feature performance metrics, as Apple marketed iPhone 16 for ‘Apple Intelligence’ before the features were actually available.
- Google and Motorola both improved to 77% satisfaction, narrowing the gap with industry leaders in an overall rising smartphone satisfaction market.
Apple is no longer the top dog in the smartphone market, in one respect at least. The company has dropped from joint top to second place in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) study.
In a new report published earlier this week, the ACSI reports that Apple has dropped one point for overall cellphone satisfaction, from 81 percent in 2025 to 80 percent this year. Samsung, meanwhile, remains at 81 percent, which means it no longer has to share the top spot. This is the first time since the 2020-2021 study, when the Galaxy S20 leapfrogged the iPhone 11 series, that Apple doesn’t have a share of the No. 1 position.
Google and Motorola sit in joint third in the 2026 study. Each registered a score of 77 percent and a two-point increase on the previous year, thereby closing the gap on Apple and Samsung. The market as a whole saw a general rise in customer satisfaction, with companies outside the top four seeing a rise from 68 percent to 73 percent, and the industry average (including the leaders) rising from 78 percent in 2025 to 79 percent this year.
- Samsung: 81% (no change from 81% in 2025)
- Apple: 80% (down from 81%)
- Google: 77% (up from 75%)
- Motorola (Lenovo): 77% (up from 75%)
- All others: 73% (up from 68%)
The changes are small, so it would be unwarranted to claim Apple’s reputation has suffered significantly in the past 12 months, nor that Samsung, Google, or Motorola are doing anything particularly special that incoming CEO John Ternus will need to worry about. But one possible explanation for Apple’s slight fall is the inclusion, for the first time, of “AI feature performance” as a metric for satisfaction.
Even in the full published study, the ACSI doesn’t give each company’s individual scores for each metric: the numbers are separated by company, or by category, but not by both at once. However, we can see that customers in general are enjoying AI features, since they received a satisfaction rating of 85 percent, the joint third-highest score out of 20 categories. (Calling and texting each got 86 percent; warranty coverage was the lowest at 80 percent, with call center satisfaction avoiding the bottom spot with a surprisingly respectable 81 percent.)
We also know that Apple has had issues delivering the AI features that today’s phone customers expect, nor indeed the ones it explicitly promised in adverts. The iPhone 16 was sold as “Built for Apple Intelligence” but launched before Apple Intelligence was available; one would imagine that the many customers who bought that device in 2024 and still have it today would not have given a very high score in the AI category.
Still, the good news is that Apple has a prime opportunity next month to win customers back. All eyes will be on the WWDC keynote on June 8 to see if Apple can fix Siri, at the very least. Bookmark our WWDC topic zone to keep up with the latest news and rumors.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.