As more and more people in the UK upgrade their phones to embrace the smartphone revolution or purchase tablets, an increasing proportion of users are also starting to look for insurance of their expensive gadgetary with searches for mobile phone insurance effectively doubling over the last three months.
In previous years, a mobile phone may not have been cheap, but it was certainly not worth the £400+ of top of the range smartphones such as the Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy Nexus. With these devices increasing in value, people are increasingly concerned about damage or theft of said device. Replacing an old Nokia 3310 may have been annoying, but replacing an iPhone mid-contract is a serious hit on the finances.
Unsurprisingly Apple devices are leading the list of gadgets people are looking to insure, with the most recent rise in searches coinciding with the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S – with “iphone insurance” making up 28% of the phone insurance searches according to Experian Hitwise. The rise also, however, conincies with the launch of the latest flagship Android smartphone – the Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich – although people are less likely to search for specific insurance for that device.
Where Apple devices really dominated the insurance searches, however, was in the tablet space – with searches for “ipad insurance” doubling in the run up to Christmas. Hitwise note that iPad insurance searches dwarf those of the Amazon Kindle – but this is more likely due to the price difference – people may not believe a £99 device to be worth insuring, whilst a £499 iPad is a completely different question. That Apple dominates tablet market in sales figures gives another reason for their domination of the insurance searches over competitors from Samsung and ASUS.
With Android looking to have another bumper year in 2012 in both the smartphone and tablet arenas, however, it will be interesting to see how these figures stack up in 2012.
[Image courtesy of 3dom]
[via Experian Hitwise]