45% of Android users to upgrade to rival phone OSes

Call it the fanboy effect, call it the superior user experience the device offers, but research shows that iPhone owners are much more likely to stick with Apple than are folk who've bought handsets from other companies.

The data comes from UBS and takes in conversations had with more than 500 smartphone owners globally.

Some 89 per cent of iPhone users said they will buy another Apple handset when they replace the phone they currently own.

The next highest figure was 39 per cent, the number of HTC handset owners who will said they'll stay with that vendor when they upgrade. RIM came next, with a 33 per cent of BlackBerry-owning respondents saying they'll buy another of the Canadian company's products next time.

Samsung (28 per cent), Motorola (25 per cent) and Nokia (24 per cent) completed the list.

Go back 18 months, and RIM had a retention score of 62 per cent - surely a sign of the degree to which the company's offerings are falling out of favour. Its decline was the steepest decline in retention score.

Apple, by contrast, saw its score fall just six per cent over the same period.

The good news for Google is that punters are predominantly pissed off with the hardware, not the software. Some 55 per cent of Android users said they will stick with the OS, but will try a phone from a different vendor next time.

But that still leaves nearly half of people currently owning an Android handset who will defect to iOS, BlackBerry or Windows Phone. ®