Growth In Android-To-iPhone “Switchers” Coming From Outside US

Powered in part by the popularity of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in China, Apple delivered amazing quarterly results this week, selling nearly 75 million iPhones in the quarter. Accordingly Apple has now pulled roughly even with rival Samsung in terms of global smartphone sales.

Samsung reported quarterly earnings earlier today that showed, relatively speaking, continued weakness in its smartphone division — though it still sold over 70 million devices globally. Amid this “slump” that Samsung is experiencing is the notion that some percentage of Android users are switching to the iPhone 6.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s commented, during the company’s earnings call this week, that “The current iPhone line up experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches in the three previous years.”

Reality checking that comment, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) reported that the US “Android switcher” rate  in the US market has remained relatively constant over the past three years.

According to its tracking survey of 500 US smartphone buyers, CIRP said:

Android users accounted for 19 percent of buyers after the launch of the iPhone 5 in the October-December 2012 quarter, and 16 percent of buyers after the launch of the iPhone 5S/5C in the October- December 2013 quarter.

CIRP’s sample size is unfortunately small but the trend is probably correct: in the US, just under 20 percent of new iPhones buyers come from Android. There’s no corresponding data on “iPhone switchers.”

Earlier survey data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech appeared to show iPhone sales gains across most major global markets. According to the Kantar data, market share for the Apple phone grew across all countries surveyed except in Japan.

The growth in “Android switchers” that Apple CEO Cook referred to must therefore be coming from international markets.