The enviable brand loyalty of iPhone owners

Having captured big proportions of the market share in much of the developed world, the iPhone continues to find new avenues of growth, particularly in developing markets. Of late, the brand has been making rapid advances in the world’s most populous market, India. The iPhone’s continued dominance in its established markets and remarkable growth in new ones is underscored by high rates of brand loyalty. YouGov data allows us to get into the details of the phenomenon.

Two-thirds (65%) of Apple handset owners globally say “I am loyal to the brand of my handset” compared to under a half (45%) of those who own any of the dozens of other brands that YouGov tracks on Telco Profiles.

Further highlighting the point, iPhone owners are nearly twice as likely as the others to say they definitely agree with the statement (26% vs 14%).

The trend of higher loyalty rates for iPhone is consistent across various individual markets, particularly in Western countries. iPhone users in the UK, for example, are 24 percentage points likelier than other handset owners to express brand loyalty (65% vs 41%). The difference between the two groups is quite prominent in the US (64% vs 46%) and Sweden (58% vs 40%) as well.

While less pronounced, the effect is certainly still present in non-Western markets like China (50% vs 45%), Saudi Arabia (57% vs 48%) and India (58% vs 52%) as well. The brand will likely be paying more attention to these markets as it looks to expand aggressively beyond its existing strongholds.

There is another stat that illustrates the immense value of the iPhone brand. Nearly half of all Apple handset owners say that they view brand as an important factor when purchasing a device (49%). This figure drops to less than two-fifths among those owning other handsets (37%). Not only that, 72% of iPhone owners cite a good prior brand experience as one of the things that influence their handset purchases. This figure drops to 61% among those using other brands.

This is likely an indication that at least some of iPhone’s immense global sales can be attributed to the sheer weight of its brand value. This is not to say that there aren’t other product attributes that promote iPhone sales. When looking at features that consumers seek in new devices, one of the many that iPhone owners over-index on is security features (38% vs 33%), which have played an increasingly important role in the brand’s recent marketing efforts.

But the brand value of iPhone is a key factor in Apple not only retaining customers but in acquiring new ones. Our data shows that 82% of current Apple handset owners would stick with the brand for their future handset purchase. But 10% of those who own any of the other devices would also consider switching to an Apple-made handset. In spite of Apple’s already massive market share, the brand could well see more growth. This is especially true of emerging markets like India where a fifth of those owning other brands (18%) say they will be looking to make the switch when they are next in the market.

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