More Buyers Say They Want iPhone, Yet More Are Buying Android

Do smartphone buyers plan to vote the way they poll? A new survey from ChangeWave gauging interests of North American smartphone buyers over the next several months indicates that a growing number of people say they want an iPhone, which perhaps is not a coincidence as iPhone rumor season heats up. But based on past surveys and current market share statistics, it’s not clear that people follow through on what they tell pollsters.

ChangeWave surveyed 4,163 North American consumers who plan to buy a smartphone over the next 90 days and asked them a simple question: which operating system would they prefer? With the next iPhone expected to arrive sometime in the next 90 days, 46 percent said they were eyeing it as their next phone. Thirty-two percent said they would prefer an Android phone, while just 4 percent said they would prefer a BlackBerry, just the latest painful data point for Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) in 2011.

But looking back over several quarters of ChangeWave data, it doesn’t seem that all of those who have indicated a preference for the iPhone in the past have actually stepped up and purchased Apple’s flagship product. For example, the number of people expressing an interest in the iPhone surged each summer for the past two years in the run-up to the launch of a new device, well above those expressing interest in Android. And interest in the iPhone has matched or exceeded interest in Android every quarter ChangeWave has conducted the survey. Yet Android phones have been ahead of iPhones in the U.S. market when it comes to actual sales for about a year.

It’s not like Apple’s suffering, of course, as the smartphone market is still growing fast enough to give more than one player room to expand. When it reports earnings tomorrow financial analysts expect another strong quarter of iPhone sales, and no matter what Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has in store for the iPhone 5 later this year, it’s pretty clear that the product resonates with the public. But the disconnect between what people say they are going to do and what they actually do is interesting, as some might consider the iPhone an aspirational product only to change their minds when confronted with a two-for-one Android special or a cheaper model.

Still, iPhone buyers are the most satisfied with their purchases, according to additional research done by ChangeWave. Seventy percent of iPhone owners said they were “very satisfied” with their purchase, compared to 50 percent of Android owners and just 26 percent of BlackBerry owners. That may eventually allow Apple to take the lead in the mobile operating system market, if the initial wave of Android buyers elect to go iOS after the contracts run out on their Android phones.

Here’s ChangeWave’s data over the last several years gauging interest in smartphones among likely buyers:

And here’s a graph of what people in the U.S. have actually been buying over the three-month period ending in May, according to Comscore:

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