Survey: One In Six iPhone 6 Users Switched From Android

Almost one in six iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users have switched from Android phones, and more than a third of U.S. iPhone 6 owners are using Apple Pay, according to a Cowen & Company survey of 3,000 iPhone 6 users and prospective customers reported by Barron’s on Monday (March 23).

The survey covered 500 iPhone 6 customers in the U.S., 500 in China, and 250 each in the U.K. and Japan, along with an equal number of smartphone users in each country who said they plan to buy an iPhone 6 within the next year.

Roughly 75 percent of the iPhone buyers were upgrading from Apple phones — and almost half of them said they upgraded early to get the iPhone 6. Another 5 percent were new smartphone users. And nearly 20 percent switched from a competitor’s smartphone, of which about 83 percent were Android, meaning roughly one-sixth of all iPhone 6 users had switched from Android.

“When taken together, these data imply about 25 percent of all iPhone 6/6 Plus purchases reported thus far have been ‘virgin’ demand, i.e. users new to (or potentially returning to) the Apple/iOS ecosystem,” the report said, adding that Android switching is highest in China at 30 percent, with Japan at 14 percent, the U.K. at 9 percent and the U.S. at 8 percent.

Among those planning to buy in the next 12 months, Android switching is even higher: about 42 percent said they’ll switch from a competitor’s phone, and 85 percent of those are Android users, meaning almost 36 percent of that group will be switching from Android to iPhone 6.

The Cowen survey, which was done several weeks before Apple’s March 9 event offering details on the Apple Watch, also found that 61 percent of Android users who plan to buy an iPhone 6 also said they were likely or very likely to buy an Apple Watch, while only 53 percent of actual iPhone 6 users said the same thing.

Reporting on the same survey, Apple Insider said the survey found about 35 percent of U.S. iPhone 6 users are using Apple Pay, and of those, 65 percent are using it several times per week — that’s about 23 percent of all U.S. iPhone 6 users.

Apple Pay is also rated as an important feature by 65 percent of those who intend to buy an iPhone 6 in the next year. “To us, Apple Pay in the near/medium-term remains primarily a driver of future hardware sales and this survey supports that view,” the Cowen report said.

But those very high Apple Pay adoption numbers are far out of line from the results of an InfoScout survey of more than 1,000 iPhone 6 users unveiled last week at Innovation Project 2015, powered by PYMNTS.com. That study found that 85 percent hadn’t made use of the Apple Pay app at all, while 9 percent had tried it but weren’t using it regularly and 6 percent were using the service.