According to recent data provided by the Yankee Group, a Massachusetts company that sells advice and market research information, over the next year in the U.S., the total number of iPhone users will pass Android users. The reason given for this is that those who join the Apple apps and services ecosystem become stuck in its “black hole.” The report also claims that the U.S. has hit an Android peak; Android ownership is expected to remain at about 34 percent of the overall population.
This must be something that is unique to the U.S. In an International Data Corporation (IDC) report released last week, the worldwide Apple market share dropped to 13.2 percent. On the other hand, both Android and Windows Phone came in with slightly higher numbers.
Data that was released by ComScore, an American Internet analytics company, showed that the total installed base of Android phones fell for the first time ever this June. At the same time, iPhone ownership continued to rise.
The Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) surveyed 500 people in the U.S. who purchased phones between January and March. It found that iPhone owners were the most loyal. It seems that 78 percent who had one went on to buy another, while for Android the figure was 67 percent.
Based on data collected from 16,000 people, Carl Howe, the author of the Yankee Group report, said "Only 9 percent of Apple owners plan to switch to another platform with their next phone purchase, while 24 percent of Android owners plan to defect from the platform."
Howe also noted, "Despite the 24 different models of smartphones Samsung offered in the U.S. market between 2010 and 2012, only 56 percent of Samsung smartphone owners intend to buy another Samsung smartphone."
The report states that once a consumer buys an iPhone, that person is highly unlikely to switch to another ecosystem. It marks “loyalty” as the reason. The report compares the Android and Apple ecosystems as two water buckets; people ready to upgrade their phones are water falling into the buckets. The Apple bucket stays full, but because of a leak in the other bucket, the Android bucket can never remain full.
The Yankee Group report also finds that BlackBerry has the worst, or lowest, loyalty among the smartphone platforms. The figures show that the proportion of BlackBerry users intending to stay with it at around 5 percent.
The bottom line is that Google has to take a more active and less laissez-faire attitude that allows hardware manufacturers to pick and choose Android features and deliver a sub-par experience that doesn't generate Android loyalty.
Apple only comes out with one new model every year or couple of years. This is usually followed by an upgraded S model. Android has quite a few companies that make smartphones of all sizes and shapes with a wide variety of features. Finding the one that is right for you is not always an easy task.
You can see that the information from the two reports varies quite a bit. The CIRP survey found that 50 percent of people who had a feature phone bought an Android smartphone, compared to 39 percent who purchased an iPhone. The Yankee Group data suggests a closer race -- it has 35 percent buying Android smartphones and 33 percent iPhones.
Yankee Group's study also suggests that similar loyalty exists in the tablet world. Seventy-nine percent of iPhone owners who have a tablet own an iPad, and 74 percent of those intending to get a tablet this year are looking at an iPad. Loyalty was less strong among Android phone owners. Only 50 percent who are planning to buy a tablet will get an Android model.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey 
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