Research company Ericsson Mobility has published an annual report including a segment on smartphone switching patterns. The report examining customer's loyalty to certain smartphone brands including iOS, Android, and Windows for mobile.

The report is based on a research on the customer retention rates. The research studied how many people bought a new phone with the same operating system.

Ericsson Mobility noted that the data obtained from a selected number of mature mobile broadband networks in Europe, Asia, and North America, according to Apple Insider.

The report found that majority of smartphone users tend to be loyal to their operating system. The users'  loyalty to Android is higher than iOS until Apple releases a new iPhone.

Apple has been reported to be successful in enticing Android users to switch to iOS during iPhone upgrade cycles. While existing iPhone users become less likely to buy Android and buy a new iPhone, Android users increasingly switch to new iPhone.

According to Business Insider, Ericsson's research found that when there isn't a new iPhone, 82% of Android users and 73% of iOS smartphone users are loyal to their devices.

Before the launch of a new iPhone, in the third quarter of this year, Android users typically upgrade to a new Android device at an average rate of 1.7% per month, and 0.3% switch over to iOS. While Apple users upgrade to a new iPhone at an average rate of 1.1%, with 0.4% switch over to Android.

But after the launch of a new iPhone in September, the study showed that the average rate of iOS users upgrading their iPhone to the latest iPhone jumped to 4.5%. The rate of Android users who switch to iOS smartphones doubled to 0.6%. While the of iOS users who switch to Android fell to 0.3%.

The report showed that in the first two weeks of a new iPhone release, the users loyalty to iOS upgrading jumped to 93%.

On the other hand, a quarter of Android users buys a new iPhone instead of another Android smartphones. At the same time, Android's loyalty rate fell to 76%.

According to Boy Genius Report, Ericsson's report said  that in more mature markets, 60% of iOS smartphones owners that switched to the iPhone 6s had devices that were only a year old.

The launch of a new iPhone also affected Windows phone users loyalty. The switching rate of Windows smartphone users to iOS increased from 0.4% to 0.8%.

But compared to iOS and Android users, the Windows smartphone users has less loyalty to their devices. The report showed that only 20% of Windows users upgrade their smartphone to a new Windows smartphone.

The report also noted that other operating systems like Blackberry, Symbian and Firefox OS has very low penetration in all measured networks and therefore, were not included.