Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has released analysis of the results from its research on mobile phone companies for the calendar quarter that ended March 31, 2020. CIRP finds that Apple’s iOS and Google Android have a stable duopoly in the U.S. operating system market.
The research group says that Apple and Google have had stable shares of the U.S. operating system market for many quarters. In the most recent March 2020 quarter, Google Android had 56% of activations, while iOS had 44%.
“Operating system loyalty is stable at very high levels,” says Mike Levin, partner and co-founder of CIRP. “For the past four or so years, around 90% of new mobile phone activations stayed with the buyer’s previous operating system. Despite Apple’s efforts to attract Android users to iOS, and Android handset manufacturers’ similar efforts to attract iPhone customers, operating system usage is among the stickiest of all consumer affinities.”
CIRP bases its findings on a survey of 500 US subjects, from April 1-9, 2020 that activated a new or used phone in the January-March 2020 period.
