It was offered by a number of analysts even prior to the iPhone 6’s release that Apple’s decision to enlarge the display would not only prompt a record number of upgrades – which pre-order numbers appear to back up – but that also, Android users would switch in their droves. Given that the general sale has yet to commence throughout the world as yet, it’s hard to make any definitive judgments, but according to one report, quite a few Droidsters have ditched Google’s platform for the iPhone 6 / 6 Plus on iOS 8.
The report in question arrives courtesy of Bloomberg, which notes that the new iPhone line-up is “fueling a surge in trade-ins of Android-based smartphones, threatening to loosen Samsung ’s grip on the large-screen smartphone segment as users switch allegiances.”
Certainly, Sammy is the leader in this field, with the Galaxy Note series having been credited with forging the so-called “phablet” market. But the announcement of the Galaxy Note 4 at IFA earlier this month was especially significant in that Samsung also Unpacked the Galaxy Note Edge, a device with an interesting curved display, and it was then – not on iPhone 6 day thereafter – that you suspected the blue touchpaper was being lit.
As the report also notes, trade-ins of Samsung handsets through Gazelle Inc., a smartphone reseller, increased threefold over the past week and notably, “about a quarter of potential iPhone 6 buyers are new to Apple’s ecosystem.”
In an interesting, alternative take on this report, though, we were contacted by the folks of CompareMyMobile, who found that some 92.35 percent of iPhone 6 (Plus) purchasers were existing iPhone users, with less than 2 percent moving from Samsung and just over 4 percent from HTC.
At this point, it’s quite difficult to gauge the size of the market share Apple is grabbing from Android as a result of its new fleet of smartphones. I don’t believe there’s much doubt that having two larger handsets will mean that Apple does entice a fair portion of users away from the clutches of Google and those who build devices on the search giant’s mobile OS, but given that the iPhone 6 has barely launched, we’ll surely have a better understanding of the line-up’s impact in the coming months.
(Source: Bloomberg)
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