This doesn't pass the smell test to me. To most people I talk to, the type of phone (smart vs. other) which network it's on, the OS, price, battery life, and form factor (including screen size) are all more important than camera quality. Camera quality might be 6th or 7th, but it's down in the "shit that doesn't really make a difference" category compared to those. Almost nobody selects their phone because of the camera, compared to how many will rule out Sprint or AT&T entirely, or pick the iphone because it's an iphone, or because they got a really good price on the phone/plan, or even because of the screen size. I'd even say that voice quality is something I hear more people care about than camera quality.
Just look at this forum, we get tons of questions about which network to choose or coverage, about pricing plans, and discussing battery life. Questions about camera quality are comparatively rare.
Unfortunately it's tough to find any real data. Googling "most important phone features poll", of the first few polls
this one didn't think camera quality was even worth asking about,
this one had camera quality 5th,
this one didn't include camera,
this one had camera 6th,
this one had camera 5th. They're virtually unanimous in putting battery life and network quality near the top of the list. Some of them are smartphone only polls so that question is just assumed. Obviously none of them are scientific, but that basically agrees with both my personal experience and what we see posted here.
