Apple
iPhones now account for 50% of all smartphone activations in the US
That’s mostly due to a shift in brand loyalty.

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Apple’s iPhone is now even stevens with Android for new device activations in the US. That’s according to a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP, via 9to5Mac), which says that iOS and Android both took 50% of the new smartphone activations in the second quarter of 2021.
That’s mostly due to a shift in brand loyalty according to the report, “with 93% of prior iPhone owners upgrading to a new iPhone, compared to 88% of Android owners staying with Android.
Over several years, iOS gained about five percentage points in loyalty, while Android remained flat. That’s significant because five years ago iPhone loyalty was at 86-percent, resulting in iPhone activations lagging behind Android at less than 40-percent of the market.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has made a point about making it easier to switch to iOS, including a purpose-built app for transferring your accounts and data across.
It could also be explained by any number of missteps in the Android side of the market, from LG deciding they don’t want to make phones anymore, to the high-profile incidences of malware in the Google Play Store, to more advertising on Android thanks to Apple’s new privacy policies, or to how long it took for Google to make Messages encrypted end-to-end.
Then again, maybe it’s just the fact that iPhones keep their resale value more than any other device, and we’re in a mini economic depression due to the pandemic. That could be it.
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