iPhone is Beating Android, Has Richer, More Loyal Users

From DailyTech: Market researchers toil away tirelessly compiling statistics, but often offer confusingly contradictory figures. Such discrepancies were on display with a new study from Nielsen that offers a very favorable perspective on Apple's market position.

A previous study from NPD showed Google's Android OS beating the iPhone 28 percent to 21 percent in Q1 2010 unit sales. Apple disputed those numbers. A second study from Gartner also showed Android closing the gap with 9.6 percent of the global smartphone market, versus Apple's 15.4 percent.

Nielsen's report paints a far different picture. It claims Apple has three times the market share of Google's smartphone operating system -- with 28 percent of the market versus 9 percent from Android. The Nielsen study claims to report national smartphone numbers -- so U.S. only. That's about the only possible explanation for the big discrepancy between it's claim of the smartphone ratio (3:1 in Apple's favor) versus Gartner's (3:2).

Nielsen also reports that Android is struggling with a familiar problem that faces many of Apple's foes -- the blind, unquestioning loyalty of its fans. Despite hot Android handsets, perennial issues like Flash blocking, and Jobs's policing of "immoral" content (like pornography), 80 percent of iPhone users plan on buying another iPhone (only 7 percent plan to switch to Android). That compares favorably to Android, which has only 70 percent of customers wanting to stay aboard and 14 percent looking to jump ship to Apple.

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