iPhone User Loyalty Still Tops Android, Others

In November, a German market research firm released a study indicating that outside of Apple’s iPhone, most smartphone owners had little loyalty to their smartphone. 56% of Apple users in global markets would remain loyal to their device, it said. Now that data has been reconfirmed by a second study, this one from mobile analytics firm Zokem. It shows that within the U.S. market specifically, iPhone loyalty is even greater.

Looking just at U.S. users, Zokem found that the iPhone beat its competitors in terms of user loyalty in 2010 by a wide margin, scoring 84% higher in loyalty rankings than its nearest competitor, Android.

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Zokem, which runs mobile consumer panels in all major markets in the U.S., found that during 2010, iPhone was the top performing platform in terms of user loyalty and was also an “increasingly likely pick for a repurchase,” said Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, CEO of Zokem. However, he noted, “Android is a good number two in the U.S. market, even though the loyalty score is not nearly as high as it is for iPhones…it seems that people who are using Android are also very likely to buy an Android-based device as their next smartphone.”

Loyalty Rankings

To determine this data, Zokem ranked loyalty using a “net promoter score” (NPS) between -100% and 100%. Generally, an NPS of 60% is considered good. The only smartphone to achieve that score is iPhone, at 73%.

Android came in second place at 40% and Samsung Bada (33%), BlackBerry (30%), Symbian S60 (24%), Windows Mobile (10%) and Palm Pre (10%) trailed much further behind.

Platform Churn

In addition, Zokem looked at platform churn, and found that, again, iPhone beat its competitors with a much lower churn rate than others. The iPhone churn percentage was 29% while the next lowest was Android, at 44%.

Repurchases

Apple iPhone users are also likely to buy an iPhone again (85% will repurchase), but so are, interestingly enough, Android users. Zokem found that 89% would purchase an Android again. However, among weaker competitors, the desire to move to another platform was more prominent.

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