The thing about surveys is that you pay your money and take your choice. Thus, you can read the recent magnum opus from Gartner which shows that Android is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will, inevitably, dominate the world - or you can take a peek at a new report from Piper Jaffray, which comes to the diametrically opposite conclusion that the iPhone already does and is unassailable. By Martyn Warwick.
Piper Jaffray is an investment bank and asset management company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the US. Every year the company produces a report on the smartphone purchasing plans of consumers in various parts of the world, and the latest one has just been released.
While far from being an objective and ruthlessly scientific examination of the sector the report does provide a snapshot of the intentions of a small sample (and by 'small' I mean a mere 400 respondents) of North American, Chinese and Korean consumers when it comes to buying a new smartphone.
So, 65 per cent of those surveyed said they intend to buy an iPhone next time round, 19 per cent will opt for an Android, and, remarkably, given that the survey is about smartphones, 6.5 per cent of respondents said they wouldn't touch a smartphone with a bargepole. A further 6 per cent said they weren't yet sure what they would buy and a mere 2.5 per cent said they would buy a BlackBerry.
And as for Nokia, well, it doesn't figure anywhere.
Of the 65 per cent who say they will buy an iPhone, just over half of respondents (comprising both current users and those who have not had an iPhone before) say they will keep their wallets zipped until the iPhone 5 hits the market.
Of those that have already succumbed to the blandishments of Apple, 94.2 per cent of iPhone users will buy another one next time around - an incredibly high figure that is up on last year's record of 93 per cent. What's more, if 50 per cent of the 2.9 per cent of iPhone owners who are "unsure" about going down the Apple route next time are added to the equation, the so-called the "re-buy rate" for the iPhone tops of at an amazing 95.7 per cent.
Elsewhere, handsets powered by Google's Android OS achieve a "re-buy rate" 60 per cent up 13 points from the 47 per cent recorded last year. That said, and to put things into perspective, 33 per cent of current Android users expect to transfer their affections to the iPhone.
Even more tellingly, 38 per cent of current Blackberry users say they will abandon the devices and transfer their allegiance to the all-conquering iPhone. No wonder RIM is worried, it is beginning to look less and less like a lame duck and more and more of a dead duck.
Given the manifest attraction of the iPhone, the Piper Jaffray report concludes that of the 170 million iPhone sales forecast for 2013, more than half of them are already made and "in the bag".
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