2015: Brand loyalty will launch iPhone ahead of Android

Analyst predicts iPhone will eclipse Android's market share within two years

The brand loyalty consumers feel toward Apple is the stuff of legends. Countless studies have shown that people who buy one Apple product tend to buy other Apple products. And people who own one Apple product tend to upgrade to other Apple products. And that brand loyalty alone might be enough to help Apple’s iPhone eclipse Android’s market share in the next few years.

In a survey of over 16,000 consumers polled by the Yankee Group, analysts uncovered a couple of interesting trends. While Apple and Google are currently neck-and-neck when it comes to luring new smartphone owners, Apple’s customers are significantly more likely to stick with Apple than Google’s customers—which will actually push iPhone ahead of Android by 2015.

Specifically, the survey—which polled consumers over the last year—found that among consumers who plan to buy a new phone in the next six months, 42% plan to buy an iPhone while 42% plan to buy an Android phone.

But among those consumers who already own iPhones and are looking to buy another phone, a full 91% plan to buy another iPhone. But among Android owners, only 76% plan to buy another Android phone. In other words, while one in 10 iPhone owners plan to switch platforms, nearly one in four Android phone owners plan to switch platforms.

Of those Android users who plan to switch, the vast majority are heading over to Apple. A full 18% of Android phone owners plan to switch to Apple, compared to just 6% of iPhone owners who plan to switch to Android.

(The gaps in these numbers mean there’s a sizable chunk of people out there who are ditching their iPhones and Android phones and heading over to Windows.) (?!)

It's safe to assume that if these trends continue, Apple will jump ahead of Android purely through brand loyalty. Indeed, the Yankee Group estimates that by 2015 (two years!!), 42% of the population will consist of iPhone owners, compared to 34% will be Android phone owners. 

A study from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners last month found that a similar asymmetry is true for iPhone versus Samsung owners. Fully 60% of Samsung Galaxy S3 buyers previously owned an Android device while only 9% previously owned an iPhone. But among iPhone buyers, 37% are upgrading from another iPhone while 20% are switching to iPhone from Android. Additionally, 30% of iPhone buyers are feature phone owners who are finally crawling out from under their rock to join the rest of the human population in the smartphone world, compared to just 18% for GS3 buyers.

The future could be closer than we think. ComScore’s most recent report on the mobile subscriber market for February reveals gains for iPhone and losses for everyone else—including Android. While Android continues to hold the top spot with 51.7% of the OS market, that’s down two percentage points from November 2012, when Android accounted for 53.7% of the market. IPhone, meanwhile, has made a surprise jump in market share, claiming 38.9% of the market, which is up nearly four percentage points from last November, when it accounted for 35% of the market. 

Image source: brainwads.net