iPhone Owners Hold on to Their Phones Longer than Android Owners

Over the past several years, we have tracked the increasingly longer time that iPhone owners have held onto their phones and waited to upgrade. As iPhones became more durable, installment payment plans became more transparent, and Apple introduced fewer must-have new features, iPhone owners have happily waited a little longer to get a new phone. Android phone owners have a very different ownership pattern. 

Using our dataset from all mobile phone buyers, not just Apple device buyers, we see that about one-third new phone buyers who had an iPhone kept that phone for three years or more (Chart 1). Only 21% of new phone buyers who had an Android phone reported it was three or more years old.