AppleInsider:
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.
I know someone will point out the Apple stat of “90% customer satisfaction” but that is different from this “Intent to Buy”. Still, I would have guessed Apple was higher than the 70% shown here. Regardless, this is where Apple has a huge advantage and where they still have plenty of room to grow by taking share away from various Android manufacturers.
Yeah, there’s definitely reasons to switch other than dissatisfaction: experimentation and fear are two big ones.
Huawei’s “intent to buy” of 54% (second to Apple) is surprising.
What I’d like to see is a longitudinal study. Go back to the respondents in a year, 2 years, etc and see what they DID buy because, as Horace points out, intent and action often diverge.
Also, 10% of the iPhone users said “don’t know” and I’d expect those to fall out roughly like the others (i.e 70% of the 10% to buy an iPhone, etc).
Finally, was this global? That would explain the Xiaomi and Huawei numbers.
Another way to look at this would be that both Android & iOS have about 80% loyalty, but the number is much lower for individual Android manufacturers (i.e. those who use Android generally stick with it, but jump between manufacturers)