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Four in 5 iPhone users will buy another one; 4 in 5 Android users bailing

Four in 5 iPhone users will buy another one; 4 in 5 Android users bailing

iPhone users are pleased with their overall user experience to the tune of about four in five of them saying they plan to buy another iPhone when the time comes. In contrast, only one in five Android users say they expect to ever buy another Android phone, says CNN.

The new data further shatters the myth that the iPhone is losing momentum to the competing Android platform, and instead helps confirm the theory that most consumers buying an Android are doing so because they want an iPhone but aren’t willing to switch to AT&T just to get one; they instead settle for using an Android with their current carrier as a quasi-iPhone compromise. The fact that eighty percent of Android users plan to go elsewhere with their next phone purchase strongly suggests that most Android users are quickly concluding that the Android experience is not an adequate substitute for the iPhone experience.

Speaking of cellular carriers, despite the large number of Verizon customers who claim that every iPhone user they encounter is having reception problems with AT&T, the same Yankee Group survey reveals that seventy-three percent of current iPhone users are “very satisfied” with AT&T’s service. This data suggests confirmation of the theory that some current customers of Verizon (Sprint, T-Mobile, etc) who want an iPhone but have decided to stick with their current carrier instead, have subsequently been exaggerating the negative experiences of iPhone users they’ve encountered in an effort to rationalize their own decision not to buy one.

Despite continual pleading on the part of tech pundits who’ve all but begged their audiences to switch from iPhone to Android, the iPhone has more than three times the marketshare of Android. Early Android momentum and hype has primarily come from gadget geeks who prefer the Android’s easy hackability and anarchist development structure to that of the iPhone’s well-regulated app store and consistent user experience. And while that type of geek-oriented user is likely to stick with the Android platform for philosophical reasons, this new data reveals a very different story for mainstream consumers who gave the Android a try, eighty percent of whom now have no intention of giving Android a second try. The question now, with eighty percent of current Android users stating their intention to buy a different kind of phone next time around, how many of them will find their way to the iPhone or other competing smartphones like the aging BlackBerry, as compared to how many of them will feel burned enough by their negative Android experience that they’ll revert back to a simple flip-phone? Moreover, of those who are bailing on the Android but still want an iPhone, how many of them will now be willing to finally switch over to AT&T to make it happen? In other words, does Apple still need a Verizon iPhone? In any case, based on these numbers, it’s now clear that Verizon needs a “Verizon iPhone” a whole lot more than its current overconfident Droid television ads would suggest.

[Thanks: http://www.beatweek.com]

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