iPhone loyalty at its lowest in 8 years, report claims

Ah, yes. The loyalty we all have to our smartphones—something that cannot be denied, explained, or even altered. Okay, maybe some loyalties can change; a new report has surfaced and makes for some pretty damning reading for Apple, as well as iPhone enthusiasts/supporters/owners.

BankMyCell, a site that lets you sell your smartphones, recently conducted a survey studying Apple brand loyalty with data from 38,000 people who traded their smartphones since October 2018. What they found wasn’t exactly surprising, but still paints a grim picture of Apple’s retention rate when it comes to iPhones.

According to the report, the iPhone’s retention rate is 15.2% worse as compared to March 2018, while 26% of people who traded in their iPhone X units moved onto another brand. In fact, 18% of people who traded in any iPhone in June 2019 switched to a smartphone from their competitors, Samsung.

In contrast to that, only 7.7% of people traded their Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones for an iPhone. The remaining 92.3% opted for another smartphone in the Android ecosystem.

iPhone loyalty is at its lowest since 2011

The report says that iPhone loyalty, at 73%, is at its lowest point in 8 years. After an all-time high rating of 92% in 2017, this marks quite the downturn in fortunes for the California-based tech company.

But it’s notable that the report, it seems, mostly collates data from BankMyCell customers, although this is supplemented with data from other companies. 38,000 respondents, perhaps, isn’t really big enough of a sample to truly determine what Apple’s loyalty among customers is at the moment on a global scale.

However, data company Kantar earlier reported that as of the end of Q2 2019, 36% of smartphone sales in the U.S. were for iOS devices, which is a 2.4% decrease from Q2 of 2018. Android phone sales, on the other hand, accounted for 61% of all sales, marking a 2.5% increase over the same time period.

This may all be part of a wider, overall decline in smartphone sales, it must be said. Global research firm, Gartner, revealed that global shipments of smartphones are seeing their worst decline ever (you can read the full report here).

“If mobile phones don’t provide significant new utility, efficiency or experiences, users won’t upgrade them, and will consequently increase these devices’ life spans,”

– Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner

[ SOURCE ]