Report Claims More Android Users Have iPhone Envy Than The Other Way Around

It's no secret that the Android and iPhone rivalry wages hotter than the Sun oftentimes, but now we have the numbers to prove that (at least in the US) Apple has more loyalists and more converted Android users than ever before.


Based on the latest report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), it was found that the case of Apple/iOS envy tops out over the Google/Android camp. The data shows that from the total number of iOS users from March 2015 till March 2023, the number of converts from Android remained pretty constant, with the latest showing a 15 percent conversion rate. Conversely, only 4 percent of new Android users came from iOS. Another table shows that iOS leads by a hair in the loyalty race: 94 percent of its users prefer to stick with the operating system than the 91 percent of Android users. 

We can surmise a couple of things from this data. Firstly, consumers prefer to stay within a familiar ecosystem (such as iOS or Android). Users become comfortable with an operating system and its services, and may also not want to deal with the stress of having to switch to another OS. To that point, the iOS ecosystem tends to be more restrictive in allowing users to migrate things like text messages, emails, or files over to Android. Therefore, one could say that there is a great number of iOS loyalists because of an arguably more authoritarian operating system.


Secondly, the results from these reports further illustrate the power of marketing and subliminal impressions, to which Apple has historically done exceptionally well here. So strong is the company's draw among the populace that Bloomberg found that 79 percent of Gen Z-ers in the US prefer iPhones. Even Carl Pei—with his company Nothing's recent push into the smartphone market—thinks that it'll be a nigh unwinnable battle for Android against Apple's dominance.

We'd love to hear from you. What factors (positive or negative) contribute to your own platform loyalty? Or do you prefer to flip back and forth on a whim?