Apple Most Popular Phone for Prospective Buyers

How many people do you think plan on buying an Apple iPhone? Turns out, it’s almost everyone. At least, as long as they already own one.

According to a new survey of 400 consumers by Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, found that 65% of phone owners say that they expect their next phone to be an iPhone. Compare that number to the 19% who plan on buying an Android phone, 6.5% who won’t be purchasing a smartphone, 6% who aren’t sure, and 2.5% who plan on purchasing a Blackberry, and you’ll see that among those surveyed, Apple’s device far outstrips any of its competitors. It is worth mentioning, however, that 52% of the survey group already owned an iPhone, which more than likely skews the results towards Apple’s devices. Munster acknowledges this, but still says that he thinks the iPhone can boost Apple’s share in the smartphone market from roughly 20% to roughly 30% by 2015.

51% of those who planned on buying an iPhone are waiting on the iPhone 5, which to Munster means that roughly 85 million iPhones are already as good as sold, based on his prediction of 170 million iPhones in 2013 and the results of this survey. Also, 94% of iPhone users in the survey group plan on buying an iPhone for the next phone as well, which is a very good thing for Apple, considering that the iPhone now accounts for more than 50% of Apple’s revenue.

While very interesting, the weighting of the study towards iPhone owners leaves me highly skeptical towards any conclusions drawn from the data. In fact, after removing the iPhone users from the data, a surprising shift happens.

I feel that I should mention at this point that this is back-of-the-napkin math and should in no way be taken as conclusive.

With 65% of those surveyed planning on purchasing an iPhone, and 52% of the survey group owning an iPhone (with 94% of those planning on purchasing another), that means that only around 14% of those surveyed plan on purchasing an iPhone without ever having owned one. After removing iPhone users, 38% plan on purchasing an Android phone, 28% plan on purchasing an iPhone, 13% will not purchase a smartphone, 12% are undecided, and 5% plan on purchasing a Blackberry. This new set of data seems to indicate exactly the opposite of the analyst’s conclusions.

More studies need to be conducted to confirm or refute Munster’s findings, but I personally feel that, outside of Apple’s walled garden, Android phones still reign supreme.