So who's lurking around Apple's walled garden?

LOS GATOS, CA: The consumer electronics market is dominated by Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung but Apple seems to be leading the pack with its thriving ecosystem and refined hardware offerings.

At the same time, as per the “Battle of the Brands: September 2015 -Making Sense of the Mad Dash for Mindshare” report from Argus Insights, Microsoft’s delight measure has been growing over the last 9 months and is now a strong number two.

Pulling from feedback of over 942,000 consumer reviews from January – September, 2015, this report details the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular offerings from these major brands.

It reveals that Apple continues to delight consumers more than the other brands due to their focus on an integrated user experience, while Google Nexus devices and the Amazon Fire TV Stick fail to delight consumers despite the strong positioning of their service offerings. Microsoft appears ripe to disrupt Apple’s hold across markets with increasingly impactful Smartphones, Fitness Band, and Surface Tablets. Samsung has been especially hard hit by the most recent iPhone launch.

“Apple has created a Walled Garden with its all-star mix of hardware and software. But over the past year we have watched Microsoft’s success in devices poking holes in Apple's walls with their tablet and wearables offerings, “ says John Feland, CEO, Argus Insights. “Unlike Google and Amazon, which offer inexpensive hardware offerings meant to entice more consumers to visit their gardens more often, Microsoft has focused on crafting new experiences built on solid hardware that is delighting consumers. Samsung, without a strong content play, is just leasing space in the gardens of other brands.”

The report also points that Smart Home offerings like SmartThings from Samsung or Nest from Google are dragging down consumer brand perceptions. Only the Amazon Echo is adding to a brand’s balance of social capital.

Early analysis of the iPhone 6S launch finds that consumer demand of the 6S line is lower than that of the iPhone 6 from September 2014. This is unlikely to have a significant impact on their Q3 earnings given pent up demand. Samsung is failing to delight users across multiple fronts and has seen a significant drop as a result of the new iPhones launched in September.

While Google owns Android ecosystem, their branded Nexus hardware just delivers ‘good enough’ to consumers, a bar being raised by Microsoft and Apple.