A study that will make blindly loyal Android fanboys giddy with glee has found that a huge chunk of iPhone owners admit to being blindly loyal to Apple, willing to buy just about anything the Cupertino, California-based consumer technology giant slaps an Apple logo on.
The study was conducted by SIMOnlyContracts.co.uk, and it involved polling 2,000 iPhone owners.
About 60% of those polled admitted to having a “blind loyalty” to Apple and even more — 78% — said they “couldn’t imagine having a different type of phone” than an iPhone. Interestingly, however, just half of respondents said they were “really impressed” by Apple’s iPhone.
In other words, they’re happy using a smartphone they’re not really impressed by simply because Apple made it.
The survey found that 54% of iPhone owners have owned another iPhone model prior to their current phone, and 37% said the reason for upgrading to a newer iPhone model was familiarity with the iOS user interface. 28% said the newer iPhone model was just the best smartphone for them, and 25% said they stayed with Apple because of iOS-specific features like iMessage and FaceTime.
“It’s really interesting to discover this blind loyalty amongst iPhone users – they’ll no longer consider other mobile phones on the market, purely because they trust Apple and perhaps like being associated with the brand,” SIMOnlyContracts.co.uk founder Roshan Bholah told The Telegraph. “However, the old saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ could ring true here, as it’s clearly a case of them having a positive experience with the handset. It’s ultimately the loyalty all brands hope to achieve with their customers – old and new.”
He continued, “Product lifecycles are fickle, so it’ll be interesting to see how long Apple can maintain this relationship with its customers, not forgetting to mention how long they can keep their competitors at bay.”
Of those who had switched to an iPhone from other smartphone brands, 17% came from a BlackBerry, 14% from a Nokia phone, 9% from a Samsung handset, 4% from HTC and only 2% from a Sony phone.
