About a fifth of Android phone owners plan to switch to an iPhone
Most smartphone buyers tend to stick with the platform they're familiar with. However, new data from Merrill Lynch indicates that a large percentage of top Android brand users now intend to switch to an iPhone in their next purchase.
Analyst Horace Dediu tweeted out a chart of data compiled by Merrill Lynch Global Research on 32,523 smartphone users ranging from Apple, Blackberry, and Google to a series of global Android licensees: HTC, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.
For each maker, the most popular choice among users for their next phone was another model from the same maker. Among iPhone buyers, that figure was 70 percent. For Samsung and Huawei users, 53 and 54 percent respectively planned to stick with their brand. Just 42 percent of Google owners planned to buy another one, while other brand owners expressed even less loyalty.
Apple was the most popular brand among switchers. Of the top five Android brands globally, 15 to 25 percent said they planned to buy an iPhone next. Among HTC buyers, 25 percent said they intended to get an iPhone, nearly as high as the 34 percent who said they'd get another HTC. Only one percent of iPhone buyers indicated interest in buying an HTC.
That asymmetric brand intention played out across other top brands as well. While 19 percent of Samsung owners said they planned to get an iPhone, only 4 percent of iPhone users were looking at Samsung. The most popular alternative brand iPhone users cited was Huawei. But while 5 percent of iPhone buyers said they planned to switch, 15 percent of Huawei owners said they planned to get an iPhone next.
Other top Chinese brands, including Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Lenovo's Motorola each got one or two percentage points of interest among iPhone buyers, while 20 percent of their users planned to switch in the opposite direction.
Blackberry and Google represented very small groups in the survey, with less than 50 users. Only 30 percent of Blackberry owners planned to buy another Blackberry, but 22 percent planned to get an iPhone. And even among Google buyers, a group that has gone out of its way to pay a premium for Android specifically to support Google, five times as many said they planned to replace theirs with an iPhone compared to the 1 percent of iPhone users who said they intended to buy a phone from Google.
These figures are markedly different from numbers released in 2015 by Ericsson, which studied actual activations of new phones on a monthly basis. It concluded that "the majority of smartphone users remain loyal to their operating system," and that in particular, "owners of high-end models were much more likely to select a new model in the same series from the same vendor than users of lower-end models."
It noted at the time that "around 80 percent of Android and iOS users are loyal to their operating system," while a small trickle of net switchers were continually flowing into the iOS installed base. At new product releases, however, that flow increased, with about twice as many outside users switching to iOS than there were iOS users buying other products.
If Merrill Lynch's data is anywhere close to being accurate, it means that the former models of switchers have fundamentally changed, and that use of Android is no longer protected by brand loyalty. One element of the OS loyalty Ericsson described three years ago has clearly changed -- it noted that only 20 percent of Windows Phone users were buying another Windows Phone model.
Windows Phone is effectively gone. Yet among Android brands, the intention to switch to iOS has grown dramatically while loyalty to Android has softened. Other things that have changed in the last three years are the collapse of Android tablets and smartwatches, even as iPad has grown in a shrinking market for tablets. At the same time, Apple Watch has become the most popular watch brand globally while Android watches have all but disappeared.
Analyst Horace Dediu tweeted out a chart of data compiled by Merrill Lynch Global Research on 32,523 smartphone users ranging from Apple, Blackberry, and Google to a series of global Android licensees: HTC, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.
For each maker, the most popular choice among users for their next phone was another model from the same maker. Among iPhone buyers, that figure was 70 percent. For Samsung and Huawei users, 53 and 54 percent respectively planned to stick with their brand. Just 42 percent of Google owners planned to buy another one, while other brand owners expressed even less loyalty.
Apple was the most popular brand among switchers. Of the top five Android brands globally, 15 to 25 percent said they planned to buy an iPhone next. Among HTC buyers, 25 percent said they intended to get an iPhone, nearly as high as the 34 percent who said they'd get another HTC. Only one percent of iPhone buyers indicated interest in buying an HTC.
That asymmetric brand intention played out across other top brands as well. While 19 percent of Samsung owners said they planned to get an iPhone, only 4 percent of iPhone users were looking at Samsung. The most popular alternative brand iPhone users cited was Huawei. But while 5 percent of iPhone buyers said they planned to switch, 15 percent of Huawei owners said they planned to get an iPhone next.
Other top Chinese brands, including Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Lenovo's Motorola each got one or two percentage points of interest among iPhone buyers, while 20 percent of their users planned to switch in the opposite direction.
Blackberry and Google represented very small groups in the survey, with less than 50 users. Only 30 percent of Blackberry owners planned to buy another Blackberry, but 22 percent planned to get an iPhone. And even among Google buyers, a group that has gone out of its way to pay a premium for Android specifically to support Google, five times as many said they planned to replace theirs with an iPhone compared to the 1 percent of iPhone users who said they intended to buy a phone from Google.
These figures are markedly different from numbers released in 2015 by Ericsson, which studied actual activations of new phones on a monthly basis. It concluded that "the majority of smartphone users remain loyal to their operating system," and that in particular, "owners of high-end models were much more likely to select a new model in the same series from the same vendor than users of lower-end models."
It noted at the time that "around 80 percent of Android and iOS users are loyal to their operating system," while a small trickle of net switchers were continually flowing into the iOS installed base. At new product releases, however, that flow increased, with about twice as many outside users switching to iOS than there were iOS users buying other products.
If Merrill Lynch's data is anywhere close to being accurate, it means that the former models of switchers have fundamentally changed, and that use of Android is no longer protected by brand loyalty. One element of the OS loyalty Ericsson described three years ago has clearly changed -- it noted that only 20 percent of Windows Phone users were buying another Windows Phone model.
Windows Phone is effectively gone. Yet among Android brands, the intention to switch to iOS has grown dramatically while loyalty to Android has softened. Other things that have changed in the last three years are the collapse of Android tablets and smartwatches, even as iPad has grown in a shrinking market for tablets. At the same time, Apple Watch has become the most popular watch brand globally while Android watches have all but disappeared.
Comments
I've seen surveys that claim over 60% of all teenagers already own an iPhone, others that say 80% are buying one. I've seen surveys that say most current iPhone owners will be upgrading to "the new iPhone" pretty much every year, another that says half of all current iPhone owners will upgrade this year, and then another that says only about 20% will upgrade within the next 12 months. Apparently surveys might be unreliable. Who knew?
1) Apple's iPhone user base is growing
2) Apple's sales are stable, at about 215 million units per year
3) Users are keeping their iPhones longer
4) Net gain from Android OS switchers, vs loss of iOS users
5) Robust used market for iPhones due to extended life cycle support
6) Highest ASP
7) Highest retention of resale value.
I'd speculate that there is considerably more churn, a shorter upgrade cycle, and faster depreciation, for Android OS devices, and even at that, Android OS device sales are stable, just the same as the iPhone's, but at much lower initial price points than iPhone.
If would be a winning strategy for Android OS device makers to target premium sales, and they are, but competition amongst all Android OS device makers reduces margins. It's a zero sum market, it's commoditized, and even as device ASP's are growing, margins are not increasing.
"What people say and what they do are different things"
Very much pinch of salt ground.
Japan is 72.8% iOS, up 3.4% since 2017.
The USA is 63.8% iOS, up 3.4% since 2017.
Canada is 61.2% iOS, up 8.43% since 2017.
Ireland is 60% iOS
Sweeden is 55.43% iOS
UK is 56.9% iOS
Australia is 50.54% iOS
https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-v-ios-market-share
The Android growth that's left is cheap phones in emerging markets, including India, and poor countries: Malaysia, Colombia. Lots of low-end phones, no money, little benefit to any global installed base.
If Android were important as a platform, Google wouldn't have dumped it for a ChromeOS tablet. And we know how well that Pixel 3 is going to sell. Samsung can't sell its Galaxy S9 at a premium. Android hasn't been in a worse position since 2011. But what were you saying about teenagers buying iPhones? It didn't make any sense.
Are you payments from Google getting lighter as you post less?
That's what Bank of America did here, and their conclusion was that more people are switching to iOS than ever before.
There are not different conclusions coming out of this survey from anyone apart from you, and yours are easy to throw away as uninformed noise.
Of course, it does overstate populations by brand. Google-branded phones are a few million in total (fewer than 50 in the survey). There are a billion iOS users. So high rates of Google loyalty aren't very significant, while high loyalty among iPhone buyers is. High aspirational interest in iPhones by owners of Chinese brands (few of which are even available in the US) says something very big about what people who buy Android really want. And what they will trade up to as soon as they can.
Android has never been in such a pit of failure across the last ten years of its existence. Something about shoddy platform security and management, shoddy third party hardware, etc. All Android makers do is copy last year's iPhone.
as someone who helped write surveys way back, I can say that only a fraction of the people do what they say on the survey.
Your inference I should be posting more will be taken into consideration. Thanks.
https://www.cnet.com/news/more-than-80-percent-of-teens-own-iphone-survey-says/
I've no idea where you read that Google dumped Android for ChromeOS. Hardly. They've worked towards making Android apps compatible with the Chrome OS which has significant benefits over an Android-only tablet (doesn't everything? LOL). Surely you research this stuff before writing it.