Why are iPhones used longer than Android phones?

In the United States, the population is divided in half when it comes to mobile operating systems. Half of the pie consists of iPhone devices, while the other half is occupied by Android phones. However, this is not in terms of sales but rather a comparison based on usage. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) revealed last week that in the United States, Android phones are sold annually with a significant lead over iPhones.

Why are iPhones used longer?

If there’s a 50/50 split in Android and iOS usage in the U.S., and people are buying more Android phones than iPhones each year, it suggests that Android users upgrade their phones more frequently compared to iPhone users. A more recent report from CIRP also confirms this situation.

The above graphic is a bit confusing, so let’s break it down. The first blue segment indicates that 10% of iPhone owners use their phones for one year or less before moving on to something else; this means that 90% of iPhone users keep their phones for more than a year.

Meanwhile, 23% of Android users fall into this category, more than double the rate. Even if you move to the 1-2 year range, there are still significantly more Android users upgrading faster. While this is interesting, the real question should be why this is the case. Why do Android users upgrade their phones quickly while iPhone users stick with what they have?

In the past, an easy explanation for this would have been software updates. iPhones typically receive software updates for over five years in most cases. In contrast, older Android phones used to have a chance of getting updates for only two years. However, this is no longer entirely accurate. For example, Samsung now provides almost all of its phones with update support for four years.

CIRP’s first theory is that Android phones are more affordable on average than iPhones, making their owners more inclined to upgrade. Another theory is that iPhones are more durable than Android phones, but this is not very realistic. Android phones and iPhones these days are essentially made of the same basic materials, with metal-edged glass constructions.

In fact, the use of lower-quality materials like plastic in some Android devices may imply that many Android phones are more durable than iPhones because dropping them doesn’t shatter the back. The best theory presented by CIRP is that the wealth of options encourages Android users to upgrade more frequently.

In other words, with only a handful of iPhones released at the same time each year, there’s only a single major incentive for iOS users to upgrade annually. However, Android users have the opportunity to upgrade not only with multiple launches from their chosen brand each year but also with launches from competing brands.