Connecting the dots: Apple and Google have long urged smartphone users to defect from their rival's platform, going so far as to publish apps on each other's storefronts to smooth the process. Yet a recent survey suggests there is little movement between users of the two mobile operating systems.
According to the latest survey by analysts at Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), the share of iPhone owners who upgraded from another iPhone, as opposed to those switching over from Android, rose this year. The figures suggest Apple users are at least satisfied enough to stick with iOS, while a fair number of Android users are still crossing over to iPhones.
CIRP periodically surveys customers who buy new phones, asking what kind of phone they owned previously. In the quarter ending March 2026, 12% of respondents who bought a new iPhone said they had switched from an Android device, compared to 14% a year earlier and 13% in 2024.
Only 1% upgraded from a feature phone or a smartphone running another operating system this year, down from 2% in each of the previous two years. That leaves the share of iPhone buyers who upgraded from another iPhone at 87%, up from 84% last year and 85% the year before. The figures suggest that most smartphone users have already settled on a preferred platform.
While CIRP does not track how many iPhone users are moving to Android, a similar survey published earlier this year by SellCell found an even higher loyalty rate for Apple in the US. Among more than 5,000 smartphone users, the share planning to stick with the iPhone climbed from 90.5% in 2019 to 96.4% in 2026. Android loyalty, by contrast, sat at 86.4% this year, and Android users were about four times as likely to switch to iOS.
The reasons behind Apple's edge are unclear. The company's recent move to support RCS messaging, which lets Android and iPhone users exchange texts with end-to-end encryption and other advanced features, appears to have had little effect on brand loyalty.
Android's comparatively open platform, which lets users sideload apps, remains one of its most significant advantages over iOS. But Google is preparing to restrict that functionality, a shift that could dull its value proposition for some customers.
Generative AI is another area where the competing smartphone platforms diverge somewhat.
Google has been quicker to weave its Gemini assistant into Android, with features such as auto-scheduling, form auto-completion, dictation, and automatic web browsing. Apple is set to bring comparable capabilities, including visual descriptions, AI web searches, and document drafting, to Siri in iOS 27 this fall.