Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Third-party analytics firm CIRP reports that, in Q2 2024, 17% of iPhone buyers previously owned an Android phone.
- This is the highest percentage for the second quarter recorded by CIRP in the past five years.
- It’s not all bad news, as there was an overall drop year-over-year for Android-to-iPhone switchers in 2023.
When it comes to the Android vs iOS argument, we know which side most people reading this fall on (hint: our site’s color scheme is green). That’s why it pains us to inform you that some new data is out that doesn’t show Android in the best light.
Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has just published a new report showing 17% of iPhone buyers in Q2 2024 were previously Android users. This is the highest percentage CIRP has seen for this action in the second quarter over the past five years. Astonishingly, last year’s Q2 saw only 10% of iPhone buyers previously being Android users — the lowest percentage in a very long time. So this is a significant jump.
Check out the chart below for more data:
Percentage of Q2 iPhone buyers who were previously Android users
The most alarming aspect of this chart is that Apple does not usually launch iPhones in the second quarter of the year — it certainly didn’t this year. That means Android users jumped ship even without Apple’s deluge of marketing for a new iPhone pushing them to do so.
What could be the cause of this? It could be that some Android users were enticed to buy different Apple products that did launch in Q2, such as iPads, which launched in May. Since these hypothetical users would now be in the Apple ecosystem (at least partially), it would then make sense that they would want to adopt an iPhone to make things work better together.
It could also be that some Android users were not interested in the newest slate of Android phones. Samsung phones, in particular, have all seen very minimal upgrades this year, with Samsung focusing much more on generative AI capabilities. It could be that this wasn’t enough to keep some buyers interested in sticking with Android.
Whatever the reason, this is not good news for Android. In the United States, especially, the youth market overwhelmingly prefers iPhones to Android. Those young people will eventually buy their own phones, and if Google wants to stay the dominant global player for mobile, it needs to figure out a way to stem the bleeding.
Thankfully, it’s not all bad news. A previous report from CIRP showed that overall fewer Android users jumped ship in 2023 when compared to 2022. However, we’ll need to wait and see how 2024 ends up looking for Team Green.
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