New research by Deloitte has revealed that Apple smartphone ownership has seen a slight increase locally over the last 12 months, and has also raised questions about whether or not Nokia, HTC and Sony will survive in the Aussie market.

According to the Australian edition of Deloitte’s Mobile Consumer Survey 2016, ownership of Apple smartphones has grown from 41 per cent to 43 per cent since the 2015 survey, while Samsung’s market share has increased from 32 per cent to 33 per cent.

The report noted that Samsung has had greater success with over-55 consumer age bracket in Australia than Apple over the last 12 months.

“With this age bracket being most affected by the 2G transition, we could see a rise in Samsung market share as a result,” the report said.

“However, recent issues with the batteries in the Galaxy Note 7 may provide a glimmer of hope for other device manufacturers.

Meanwhile, Nokia has lost ground in terms of market share, down from 6 per cent to 4 per cent, while HTC’s market share has remained steady at 5 per cent, and Sony’s share has declined slightly from 4 per cent to 3 per cent.

Together, the three brands make up just 12 per cent of overall smartphone ownership locally, “raising questions as to whether or not they will persist in such a competitive and relatively small market”, the report said.

According to the survey, mobile phone ownership climbed again this year from 79 per cent to 84 per cent of Australians, ahead of the global average of 81 per cent.

Aussies aged between 18 and 24 have the highest level of ownership, with 94 per cent having access to at least one smartphone.

However, Deloitte expects smartphone ownership levels to begin to plateau here in Australia in 2017, after a portion of the remaining 17 per cent of Aussies who still use a feature phone look to upgrade to a smartphone when the old 2G networks are retired in the coming months.

The survey also found that Aussies are collectively interacting with their smartphones 480 million times a day – a 9 per cent increase compared to last year’s survey.

Furthermore, 30 per cent of all users admit to using their phones in the middle of the night. When looking at 18 to 24-year-olds specifically, that figure escalates to 45 per cent.

Aussies have also continued to exhibit behaviours where making a traditional voice call is seen as the communication exception rather than the norm, according to the report, with over a quarter of all mobile consumers not using their phone to make a traditional voice phone call in a given week.

“However, while traditional voice calling might be declining relative to other methods of communicating, mobile consumers are in fact communicating more than ever only through different ways, increasingly using text messaging, email, social media, instant messaging, VOIP and video as data-enabled communications,” Deloitte’s technology, media and communications partner (and co-author of the report), Jeremy Drumm, said.

“Text messaging is Australia’s preferred way of communicating (88 per cent), with instant messaging and communicating through social networks jumping in use year-on-year. There has also been a marked increase over the last two years in the proportion of people using non-voice-oriented communications mediums.

Drumm added that Aussies are also increasingly adopting innovations that enable the “connected self”.

“For example, Snap Inc. has released sunglasses that allow users to record 10-second bursts of video footage. This content can then be transferred to the ‘Memories’ section of SnapChat and broadcast to the user’s followers, while Facebook now offers live video feeds and notification for broadcasting,” he said.