SquareTrade Study finds 25.6% of iPhones fail in the first two years

Today, SquareTrade released the results of a study compiled by its analytics team, with collected data on over 25,000 iPhones covered by SquareTrade Care Plans.

It’s been a year since SquareTrade last examined the reliability of the iPhone. With Apple’s much anticipated launch of iPhone 4 this week, we’ve taken another look at iPhone failure and accident rates to see how they’ve evolved over the past year.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS STUDY INCLUDE:

• 25.6% of iPhone owners experienced a failure in the first two years of use. 18.1% reported a failure from accidental damage, while the remaining. 7.5% reported a hardware malfunction, a significant drop from a year earlier when we only examined the 3G and original iPhone.

• Touchscreen reliability improved with the iPhone 3GS, which has had half as many touchscreen problems of the 3G in the first year.
• Loss and theft is a minor problem for the iPhone when compared to accidents and normal use failures.
• Drops and cracked screens accounted for over three-quarters of accidents, and liquid damage accounted for one in five accidents.

You can view  the full study here.

Read a good synopsis in Computer World here: More than a quarter of iPhones break within 2 years

Thoughts on this study?

Like our previous studies, this report has people talking!  To join the discussion, join SquareTrade on Facebook or on Twitter.

And check out our other studies on digital cameras, laptops, game consoles, iPad 1 vs. iPad 2, iPhone damage, and iPhones in the home.