Android Users Are 4x More Likely to Switch Phones Than iPhone Owners [Survey]

Fewer than one in 25 iPhone users plan to switch brands on their next upgrade. That’s the highest loyalty rate SellCell has recorded across three surveys spanning seven years, and it’s not particularly close to anyone else.

The phone trade-in site surveyed more than 5,000 U.S. smartphone users and found that iPhone brand loyalty now sits at 96.4%, up from 91.9% in 2021 and 90.5% in 2019. On the Android side, 86.4% of users said they’d stick with their current brand. That 10-point gap means Android users are nearly four times more likely to jump ship than iPhone owners (13.6% vs. 3.6%).

The numbers tell a clear story: people aren’t switching phones anymore. But they’re especially not switching away from iPhones.

Samsung bounced back, Google too

Android brands took a loyalty hit in 2021 and have since recovered. Samsung climbed to 90.1% loyalty in 2026, up sharply from 74% in 2021 and slightly above its 85.7% level in 2019. Google’s Pixel line followed a similar arc, falling from 84% in 2019 to a rough 65.2% in 2021, then rebounding to 86.8%.

Apple, by contrast, never dipped. It’s posted consistent growth across all three survey periods.

Why iPhone users stay

The top reason isn’t a feature or a spec. It’s just preference. 60.8% of loyal iPhone users said they stay because they prefer Apple. Another 17.4% said they’re too invested in the Apple ecosystem to leave. Ease of use (10%), reliability (8.7%) and trust in privacy and security (3.1%) rounded out the rest.

Android loyalists gave broadly similar answers, with 58% citing brand preference and 23.5% pointing to reliability. But ecosystem lock-in was markedly lower on the Android side at just 6.3%, compared to Apple’s 17.4%. That gap suggests Apple’s web of interconnected devices, services and data is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

What makes people leave

For the small group of iPhone users considering a switch, it comes down to money. 25.8% said other brands offer better value, and 24.7% said iPhones are too expensive. Together, price-related reasons account for more than half of iPhone defections.

Among Android switchers, value (31.8%) and better technology elsewhere (27.1%) were the top drivers. And 26.8% of Android users who plan to switch said they’d pick an iPhone, making Apple the second most popular destination after Samsung (31.5%).

Long-term lock-in favors Apple

The stickiest data point in the survey: 83.8% of iPhone users have been with Apple for more than five years. Only 33.8% of Android users said the same about their brand. That long-term entrenchment helps explain why Apple’s loyalty figure keeps climbing while Android brands fluctuate.

The smartphone market is calcifying. Switching is at its lowest level across all brands since SellCell started tracking it in 2019, and the window for winning users from a competitor keeps narrowing. Growth now depends less on poaching and more on capturing first-time buyers, particularly through lower-cost devices.

Apple’s 96.4% retention rate means it barely needs to worry about keeping existing customers. The 3.6% who do consider leaving? Nearly 70% of them would go to Samsung.