Best Buy On A High In iPhone Retailer Stakes

As tech journalists are buzzing about the latest iPhone models, consumer attention has turned to the retailers with the best smartphone deals.

Best Buy appears to be doing well out of US smartphone retailers – as the store’s limited-time $100 trade in deal for iPhone 5C buyers gets underway, YouGov BrandIndex metrics among smartphone owners are showing the brand is above an average of its competitors in Buzz and Purchase Consideration.

We measured how smartphone users view Best Buy against an average of its main competitors, including Costco, Gamestop, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Sears, Target and Walmart.

While Buzz measured what smartphone-savvy consumers have heard about each brand – through news, advertising and by word of mouth – Purchase Consideration asked Americans with a smartphone if they would consider buying from each retailer next time they’re in the market.

By performing consistently above its competitors, Best Buy could be gaining a share of the estimated 9m iPhones that have been sold in the third quarter. These sales figures from YouGov’s BrandIndex CategoryView data were calculated ahead of time for networks AT&T , Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. BrandIndex CategoryView worked out the sales prediction by asking thousands of consumers about their technology awareness, historical purchases and intended purchases in this space. This predicted sales figure is slightly down from Q2 2013, when apple sold 9.9m iPhones were sold in the US – BrandIndex CategoryView predicted before Q2 2013 Apple would sell 9.6m units through the Quarter.

Best Buy’s latest Buzz score, based on a 1-week average of responses from US smartphone users, is at 14 out of a possible -100 to +100. Its competitors have a Buzz score of 11. Consideration for Best Buy is 55% out of 0% to 100% and 36% for its competitors.

Since announcing its trade-in offer on October 10, that ran for a week from October 13, Buzz among smartphone users rose to 14 on Tuesday October 15 from 12 on October 10.

Back in September, Walmart offered its own smartphone trade-in that let customers swap one of 100 different phones for a new model. RadioShack meanwhile has been hot on the heels of Best Buy’s iPhone promotion with its own deal of handing out $50 gift cards to iPhone 5C buyers, which ended in early October.

This post was written by Ted Marzilli. He is senior vice president and managing director of BrandIndex.

Image: Getty