Finland-based HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, leads the trust rankings while many Chinese handset makers including Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi rank quite low, said a report on Tuesday.

The findings are a part of Counterpoint Research’s latest whitepaper titled “Nokia Phones Lead the Trust Rankings based on Software, Security Updates and Build Quality”.

Counterpoint Research 2020 trust rankings based on the four pillars of software, security updates, build quality, and devices recommended for enterprises. These pillars comprise various weighted criteria with a comparative analysis done for the leading Android smartphone brands, the global reseacrh firm said.

Android brands

“For the second year in a row, Nokia phones have topped our rankings in providing the most comprehensive software and security updates and it has the highest share of portfolio recommended for enterprise use. The performance of Nokia phones continues to be a competitive advantage over the rest of the smartphone brands in the Android ecosystem,” Peter Richardson, Vice-President and Research Director, Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said.

He said 98 per cent of Android smartphone brands still offer inconsistent software and security updates or none at all. OnePlus also did well by providing faster software updates to all its devices currently selling in the market followed by Samsung and realme.

With smartphones being devices that are always-on and connected, they are more vulnerable to cyberattacks which are growing both in frequency and severity. This makes software and security updates for Android smartphones an critical aspect, he said.

“Due to the pandemic, there have been changes in the work environment with many more people working remotely. This situation calls for an enterprise-grade security solution for data security, to block malware, and to prevent things like phishing attacks,” he added.

Commenting on build quality results, Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at the Counterpoint, said, “We found that Nokia phones undergo tougher tests than the industry average. We therefore concluded that, when considered alongside the faster software and security updates the strong build quality means Nokia phones will last the test of time which is increasingly important at a time when global device replacement cycles are getting longer, now approaching 30 months.”

On the performance of smartphone brands, the report said that surprisingly, there are top 10 smartphone manufacturers that don’t have any clear strategy to inform customers whether their devices are eligible for security and software updates. Some of these companies include Oppo, LG, Samsung, Huawei and Vivo.

“We think this issue will become increasingly important as consumers keep their smartphones for longer and rely on them more. Nokia and OnePlus devices have done well here,” Ritesh Bendre, Global Content Manager at Counterpoint said.

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