Apple Retains Over Twice As Many Customers As Its Competition

Apple has an 89% retention rate which is over twice as high as its competition, reports UBS Research. The firm polled 515 smartphone owners asking which phones they owned and which they plan to buy next.

"In general, retention rates appear to be falling for most of the OEMs. Relatively, Apple's retention rates have held up incredibly well even as its market share has risen. Interestingly, when we look at all consumers who are considering changing handset OEM provider, Apple remains a significant net beneficiary. Alongside Apple, only Samsung and HTC also appear as net beneficiaries (more users won than users lost). Interestingly, of our respondents who are current Apple subscribers, only 6% indicated that they intended to move to a different OEM, with 4% saying they were undecided. This suggests that the retention rate for Apple could end up being as high as 93%."

RIM's retention rate dropped from 62 percent to 33 percent over past 18 months. Android has an ecosystem-wide retention of 55 percent and HTC has a retention rate of about 39 percent. Samsung has a retention rate of 28 percent and Nokia's retention rate has dropped from 42 percent to 24 percent.

Read More [via Geoff]