The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has released this year’s Telecommunications, Mobile Phones and Smart Watches Study. Here’s how the iPhone and Apple Watch fared.
The iPhone loses a point, while the Apple Watch remains stable
Over the years, Apple has touted high customer satisfaction as a hallmark of its product quality, to the point that Tim Cook’s phrase “customer sat” has become something of a meme, particularly during Apple events and earnings conference calls.
Last month, during Apple’s second quarter of 2026 On the earnings call, customer satisfaction came up five times over the course of the hour-long session, and Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Kevan Parekh twice mentioned that 451 Research had recently measured customer satisfaction for the iPhone 17 line at 99% in the U.S. Parekh also cited 451 Research figures of 97% for the Mac, 98% for the iPad, and 96% for the Apple Watch.
This week, however, the ACSI (via Macmundo) published this year’s Telecommunications, Mobile Phones and Smart Watches Study, with slightly different figures.
The study was based on 26,963 completed surveys conducted between April 2025 and March 2026. Customers were asked to rate their recent experiences with the largest companies in each category.
In the overall “mobile phone” category, Samsung took first place, maintaining its score at 81, while Apple dropped one point from last year to 80.
The overall category score increased 1% to 79. This year’s study also measured the performance of AI functions for the first time, and the category scored 85 on ACSI’s 0 to 100 scale.
In particular, the performance of AI functions debuts at 85, nearly matching the most important interactions, suggesting that AI is moving from a novelty to a practical utility for many customers.
When the “cellphones” category was broken down by model type (flagship, foldable, and legacy/other), Samsung again scored higher than Apple in the flagship segment, 84 versus 82, respectively, while Apple scored one point above Samsung in the legacy/other segment, 79 versus 78, respectively. Samsung comfortably led the foldable device segment with a score of 80, well ahead of Google with 72 and Motorola (Lenovo) with 70.
Meanwhile, in the “smartwatches” category, Apple and Samsung tied with scores of 80 each, with Apple unchanged year over year and Samsung down from last year’s score of 83.
Overall customer satisfaction in the “smartwatches” category also remained unchanged at 77, with “Connectivity to apps and accessories,” “Activity/fitness tracking usability,” and “Website satisfaction” scoring the highest at 83 each.
To view the full ACSI report, follow this link.
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