The bargain is over. The latest statistics confirm what was already being seen in the market: Apple’s spark has gone out and it no longer has the capacity to continue fighting Android as it did before. It is the obvious beginning of the end of an era in which the iPhone no longer surprises or creates as much magnetism as before.
In the mobile market, the main battle that has always been fought has been between Apple and Android. Of course, there are several brands that work with Google’s operating system, but that does not prevent it from being a confrontation that has endured over the years. And, although the apple company has waged a lot of war on Android, it seems that the decline has begun.
Is Apple’s attraction fading?
According to the data you have published CIRP regarding the 2023 statistics, the percentage of users who had an Android mobile phone and who have switched to the iPhone has been 13%. It is still a tangible proportion that means that there are people who change the Google system for an iPhone, but the important thing is to see that a decrease is beginning to occur.
In 2022, the percentage reached by the apple company was 15%. These are two points of difference that, although not drastic, do identify a situation that many specialists have already spoken about. Because the iPhone, once a device that aroused passions, has failed to excite users for a long time.
Difficulties for Apple
One of the reasons that is causing the popularity of the iPhone to be affected is the legal changes that Apple is facing in Europe. Until now, a good part of the users who changed Android for the iPhone did so due to the obstacles they had previously encountered. After all, everyone knows that Apple has introduced, in recent years, some measures that have complicated day-to-day communication between iPhone and Android users. That made ending up buying an iPhone the best possible option to avoid headaches.
Apple has also tried to make the switch from Android to iPhone easier, primarily launching tools that showed users that changing operating systems and environments would not be so complicated. This is something that the entity began to promote the moment it saw, in 2020, that the situation was critical. In that year, only 11% of users abandoned Android to switch to the iPhone, and the same thing happened exactly a year later.
The iPhone entity took urgent measures to solve the problem and achieved the boost it had in 2022 to 15%, but it is obvious that it has been an isolated case. The percentage is already starting to fall again and it is very possible that it will reach 11% again in 2024. It would not even be strange, in view of the changes in regulations that the iPhone faces, for the percentage to fall even under.
But, within the equation, we must not leave aside something important that is very possibly also helping the numbers from Android to iOS to suffer: Android mobile phones. Manufacturers like Samsung and Xiaomi have exceeded their limits to the extreme to achieve flagship terminals that are true beasts and have nothing to envy of the iPhone. Not only that, but the days when, long ago, Android phones imitated the iPhone, are over. Now we find that it is Apple itself that imitates concepts and tries to keep up with a market that is advancing faster than they can afford. Because it is obvious that this Apple has nothing to do with the one that, in a plethora of ways, changed the world with the first iPhone.
The many setbacks of the apple company, its slow speed in adopting new trends and the lack of an innovative design team like the one it once had, are giving wings to Android. Even in Asian markets where the passion for the iPhone was, in the past, massive, today we are already seeing tons of Samsung Galaxy and Xiaomi phones in the hands of citizens.
