St. Petersburg, December 11th, 2008 — Spb Software, a leading mobile software developer announces the results of fifth annual Spb Survey. This year, Spb Survey was held between 10th and 24th of December, and aimed to track changes in mobile device preferences and brand loyalty, smartphone and software use cases, user profiles and behavior. Originally, Spb Survey addressed only the Windows Mobile audience, but this year, users of all mobile platforms were invited to participate. The majority of Spb Survey respondents are mobile activists with clear interest in mobile technology, and are not fully representative of the entire global mobile community. However, as mobile connectivity enters more spheres of everyday life — the global mobile community is becoming more active and technologically-savvy throughout, and accurate industrial outlooks and estimations can be made, based on the answers provided by Spb Survey respondents.

Thousands of survey responses given in 11 languages by people from 22 countries were analyzed and condensed into the following Spb Survey results summary:

The majority of survey respondents are still male (95%), 57% of them are aged between 19 and 35, and 58% have at least a Bachelor’s degree
The majority of Spb Survey respondents are from North America and Western Europe
About 17% of respondents are students, 17% work in the field of mobility, and an amazing 68% are ‘device fans’
Brand-wise, HTC smartphones have the absolute leading position, being the brand of choice for over 49% of all Spb Survey respondents. HTC is followed by HP with nearly 6%, Asus with 5.5%, E-TEN with almost 4%, Dell with a little over 3.5%, Nokia and Samsung with 3%, Qtek with 2.6%, MiTAC with 2%, Toshiba, Sony Ericsson, Palm, T-Mobile, and i-Mate — each at around 1.5%, and Fujitsu Siemens with O2 XDA at about 1%. All other brands ranked below 1%
The single most popular mobile device model is HTC TyTn II, followed by HTC Diamond, and HTC Touch Pro. Among the top ten most popular smartphone models, only one is a non-HTC device
Surprising 27% of all respondents use a second SIM card
62% of respondents would buy a device of the same brand, and 56% claim they would even buy the same model
Among the best things about their devices, 69% of respondents first put the looks (design), 68% — the availability of built-in Wi-Fi, 47% — business features and big screen, with the ‘price’ placing 8th in importance, and ‘music platform’ — last
The top two aspects most disliked in devices are ‘Low memory’ and ‘Weight’
The majority of respondents upgrade to a new device once in every two years
Most respondents user their smartphones first for business — then for entertainment
31% of respondents use Push Email
80% backup their data
Nearly 80% of respondents use software they paid for

Spb Software invites the mobile community to view full Spb Survey 2008 results here.