More than half of US consumers looking to buy a smartphone in the next three months will opt for Apple's 3G iPhone.

So says investment house RBC Capital Markets on the back of a survey of 3600 tame consumers on its Technology Adoption Panel conducted last month just after the second-gen iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs.

Some 56 per cent said they want a 3G iPhone. Three months previously, only 35 per cent of the the same group said the Apple handset appealed to them.

Related stories

• RIM flicks open first clamshell BlackBerry
• BlackBerry clamshell pair leaked online
• Palm to unveil Treo Pro today?
• Palm lets slip Treo Pro piccies
• Gadget confusion rules supreme in Blighty
• T-Mobile dates BlackBerry Bold launch
• RIM BlackBerry 9500 'Thunder' spied on web
• World fails to end as Palm ships Treo smartphone with Wi-Fi
• iPhone 3G to lure pre-payers to contracts - survey
• iPhone 3G to be in 'very short supply for weeks' - carrier
• AT&T: pay-as-you-go iPhones will be locked
• AT&T prices up PAYG 3G iPhones
• An iPhone with a keyboard?
• iPhone will ship in green packaging
• Analyst: Intel Atom inside iPhone in 2010
• Staffer spills beans on O2 UK 3G iPhone launch

What prompted the change of heart? Better pricing and 3G connectivity, panel members said.

If RBC's numbers are replicated by the market as a whole, there will be "unprecedented pent-up demand" for the new Apple phone, company analyst Mike Abramsky told investors.

Good news for Apple, but not for its competitors. Some 23 per cent of the group said they'd opt for a BlackBerry, while only three per cent preferred a Palm. An HTC handset was the next most popular (two per cent), followed by Motorola (one per cent). Nine per cent of panel members chose from among all the remaining brands, Nokia among them. The remaining six per cent presumably aren't interested in buying a smartphone.

More comments…