Are iPhone buyers more loyal than Android buyers?

The US smartphone market has struck some sort of equilibrium in recent years. As many people in the US today buy devices with Apple’s iOS as devices with Google’s Android that each platform accounts for about 50% of the market. It wasn’t like that before; The balance has recently tipped in favor of iOS, allowing it to steal soil from Android.

What’s behind Android’s slow erosion of market share in the US? Loyalty, according to new data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Small numbers make a big difference

As recently as 2017, Android held about two-thirds of the US market for smartphones, according to research by CIRP, with iOS retaining about one-third of the market. At the time, the Android platform enjoyed a loyalty rating of around 91%, while iOS’s loyalty rating was around 86%. That means 91 out of 100 Android device owners have stayed with the platform when upgrading their phones. In the past four years, loyalty to the Android platform in the US has hardly changed. Loyalty to iOS has slowly increased in the meantime.

“Loyalty and switching help explain some of the change in the proportion of new phone activations as iOS gains loyalty in a market with minimal switching,” said Mike Levin, CIRP partner and co-founder. “Last quarter, Apple had a loyalty advantage as 93% of previous iPhone owners switched to a new iPhone, compared to 88% of Android owners who stayed with Android. Over several years, iOS gained about five percentage points in loyalty while Android stayed flat. As a result, Apple was able to steadily increase the iOS share of new smartphone activations. “

In other words, Android user loyalty has remained largely unchanged while iOS user loyalty has increased. Despite the small shift in numbers, the inevitable had to happen – a 50/50 market split in the US.

CIRP found these numbers by surveying 500 people who activated a new phone between April and June 2021. This sample may be a bit small, but CIRP’s results on total market share are consistent with other research firms. For example, Counterpoint’s data shows that iOS accounted for around 50% of the US market last year, although it fluctuated quite a bit from quarter to quarter.

Related: The best Android phones

Brands tell a different story

While CIRP’s data shows that loyalty to Android has generally remained largely unchanged, SellCell’s data says otherwise. SellCell recently surveyed around 5,000 US citizens about their mobile devices and found interesting insights into individual brands.

First of all, brand loyalty to Apple is very high at 92%, an improvement of 1.5 percentage points over Apple brand loyalty two years ago. This is consistent with the data from CIRP. However, over the same two-year period, Samsung saw brand loyalty drop from 85.7% to 74%. This means that more than one in four Samsung users said they would buy a different brand of device for their next upgrade. Most notably, 53% of Samsung defectors said they would switch to an iPhone.

Other Android brands have also lost loyalty. Loyalty to the Google Pixel fell off a cliff, falling from 84% in 2019 to 65.2% in 2021. Motorola and LG fared significantly worse, with 71% and 71% respectively.

Unfortunately, the data from CIRP and SellCell is limited to US consumers; You haven’t interviewed people outside of the US.

See also: 8 things iOS can do better than Android

Why have loyalties changed?

The most interesting question here isn’t which brand or platform has retained the most loyalty, but why loyalties have changed in the first place.

A reason? Privacy. SellCell found that 31.5% of respondents planned to move from Samsung to an iPhone due to privacy concerns. Apple has stepped up the privacy rhetoric in recent years. Another 25.2% of defectors said they were leaving Samsung because other brands offered better value for money.

Not all iPhone owners are happy, and some even switch to other brands. About 38% of iPhone owners cited other brands ‘better technology as a reason to switch, 26.4% preferred other brands’ design language, and 12.9% opted for newer features on the latest Android devices.

But the main reason people stick with their smartphone brand? Ecosystem lock-in and fear of change.

Apple may have enjoyed a surge in loyalty in the US over the past few years, but that hasn’t helped its global image. Apple’s iOS held 15 to 17% of the global smartphone market in the first quarter of 2021, depending on what numbers from the analyst firm you believe. With a market share of around 85%, Android clearly dominates compared to iOS on a global scale, and it is evident that Android users will be a loyal bunch over time.