Announcing a new survey of iPhone users

I think it's safe to say that the iPhone is the most publicized new mobile product of the last several years, especially in the United States. But although there has been endless commentary on the iPhone, there hasn't been much solid data on how it's being used, and what impact it's having on the industry.

At Rubicon, we set out to fix that by conducting a quantitative study of US iPhone users last month. We released the results today at CTIA. You can read the full results on the Rubicon website (link). Here are a few highlights:

--iPhone users we surveyed are very satisfied overall with the product, and report that they're making heavy use of features like e-mail and browsing. This is driving higher mobile phone bills, producing about $2 billion a year in additional revenue for AT&T.

--Users are not universally satisfied with everything about the device -- about 40% report that it can't display all the websites they want to visit, and many also said they would like to see physical changes to the product, such as the addition of a bigger screen or a thumb keyboard.

--Users are young Apple veterans. Half of US iPhone users are under 30, and 75% are prior Apple customers.

--The iPhone is expanding the smartphone market. About 50% of iPhone users replaced conventional mobile phones, while 40% replaced other smartphones. The Motorola Razr was the conventional phone most often replaced, while Microsoft Windows Mobile devices and the RIM Blackberry were the smartphones most often replaced.

--Email is the #1 function. The most used data function on the iPhone is reading (but not writing) email, with about 70% of users doing that at least once a day. About 60% said they browse the web on the iPhone daily.

--The iPhone increases mobile browsing. Over 75% of iPhone users say they do a lot more mobile browsing on it than they did with their previous mobile phone.

--The iPhone drives carrier switching. About half of iPhone users switched carriers to AT&T when they obtained the iPhone.

Please note that although I usually post an April Fool's message today, this ain't it. The timing at CTIA made today the best day to release the study. It's completely genuine.