More than a third of Australians are prepared to ditch their smartphone brand and switch to a rival in 2017, threatening Apple and Samsung's domination of the local market.
Around 36 per cent of Australians aren't brand loyal when it comes to mobile phones and will buy whichever device best suits their needs when looking for their next smartphone, according to research by finder.com.au.
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Apple customers are the most devoted in Australia, with 33 per cent of respondents preferring to stick with an iPhone for their next smartphone upgrade, while 21 per cent will remain loyal to Samsung. Loyalty to other individual smartphone brands — such as Sony, HTC, Google and Microsoft — remains at less than 2 per cent each.
The Samsung Note 7 recall, due to exploding batteries, saw the number of Australians intending to buy a Samsung device fall to 21 per cent from a high of 33 per cent. The majority of those people who lost interest in buying a Samsung device would still prefer to stick with Android rather than defect to Apple's iPhone — with interest in Huawei, Oppo and Google-branded Android phones increasing by more than 50 per cent.
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Those figures leave 36 per cent of Australians not professing a loyalty to any particular brand or mobile operating system. Baby Boomers are the least loyal smartphone owners, according to finder.com.au, with more than half buying whichever phone they prefer at the time of purchase.
Overall Australian men are less loyal to smartphone brands than women, with men opting to purchase a new phone based on preference of features rather than brand loyalty. Of the Australians who do prefer to stick with the same brand, women are much more loyal to Apple than men (38 per cent as opposed to 23 per cent), while men are slightly more loyal to Samsung than women (22 per cent to 20 per cent).
The fact so many Australians are open to changing their brand of smartphone creates a significant opportunity for challenger brands to get a foothold in 2017, says finder.com.au telco editor Alex Kidman.
"The figures suggest that there are still rusted on phone buyers who won't switch brands but, just like with elections, there are plenty of swinging voters," Kidman says. "This creates opportunities for either Samsung or Apple to poach users from each other, or perhaps for a new power to rise and seriously grow its presence in Australia."
"Australians used to be described as iPhone die-hards, but that's clearly not the case anymore. Globally it's telling that previously Apple had always put out a release trumpeting iPhone sales on the weekend after a big release, but it never did so for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus — the closest we got were the financials showing the quantity sold."
When you count all Android handset makers, not just Samsung, Australia's loyalty to Android is almost on par with its loyalty to Apple smartphones. This leaves the door open for other Android-powered smartphones to step out from Samsung's shadow.
"Samsung is still a little punch drunk after the Note7 debacle, and they've delayed the Galaxy S8," Kidman says. "The S8 is heavily rumoured to have the exclusive on the new Snapdragon 835 processor, which could see it fend off the pretenders to the Android throne such as Huawei, LG, Sony and HTC."
"All of these Android handset makers either have new smartphones available now or coming up at Mobile World Congress in a few weeks, so it's shaping up to be quite a battle to win over Australian smartphone owners."
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