While recent figures show Samsung shipping nearly twice as many smartphones as Apple, the iPhone still leads when it comes to intent to buy, suggesting it will gain market share at Samsung?s expense over the next six months.

Samsung shipped almost two times more smartphones than Apple during the first quarter, per recent research from Strategy Analytics. However, a Yankee Group survey shows that 42 percent of those planning to buy a new smartphone in the next six months intend to buy an iPhone, while only 17 percent intend to buy a Samsung phone.

?Intent to buy is a very powerful indicator because it is not just one or two people saying it, it is literally millions of people saying it and as such it tends to move the market,? said Carl Howe, vice president of research and data sciences at Yankee Group, Boston. ? It is a more reliable indicator of where the market is going.

?For all of the Android ecosystem in the United States, the intent to buy any of those devices is about that same as it is to buy iPhone,? he said. ?If you look at any one of those manufacturers, it is significantly lower.

?I expect Apple?s share to go up pretty steadily as it has over the last couple of years. It is surprising to everyone when we say that Apple sells the majority of smartphones in the United States, period.?

Loyal to Apple
Approximately 30 percent of respondents to a Yankee Group survey own an iPhone compared to 19 percent who own a Samsung phone.

With more than twice as many smartphone buyers intending to buy an iPhone compared to Samsung, this suggests that Samsung will lose market share to Apple in the next six months.

Apple owners are also more loyal to the platform than Android owners.

Existing iPhone owners are also more loyal, with only 6 percent of iPhone owners intending to buy an Android phone with their next purchase while 18 percent of Android smartphone owners plan to switch to Apple.

Apple could also benefit from the overall growth in smartphone adoption, with 35 percent of feature phone owners who are looking to upgrade to a smartphone intending to purchase an Android phone, 33 percent an Apple phone but only 16 percent a Samsung smartphone.

Apple?s share of smartphones is expected to grow 20 percentage points in the next five years, surpassing Android ownership by 2016, per Yankee Group.

Samsung?s shipment spike
However, during the first quarter of 2013, the big news was Samsung?s significant growth.

Samsung?s first quarter smartphone shipments increased 56 percent annually to reach a record 69.4 million units smartphones worldwide, according to Strategy Analytics. As a result, Samsung captured a 33 percent market share in the first quarter, a new high for the company.

In comparison, Apple shipped 37.4 million iPhones worldwide in the first quarter, up only slightly from 35.1 million a year earlier. The iPhone?s 7 percent growth during the first quarter was its lowest growth rate ever in its history.

LG became the world?s third largest smartphone vendor for the first time ever, with shipments doubling year-over-year to 10.3 million units.

Smartphones out-ship feature phones
Overall, global smartphone shipments grew 36 percent annually to reach 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, according to the Strategy Analytics figures. Growth was driven by demand for 4G LTE models in developed markets and 3G models in emerging markets.

Per research from International Data Corp., for the first more smartphones were shipped than feature phones. 

Overall, the worldwide mobile phone market grew 4 percent year-over-year in what is traditionally a slow period for mobile phone sales, with smartphones accounting for 51.6 percent of total phone shipments.

With Apple expected to introduce new mobile devices later this year, this is likely to renew some of the excitement around the brand and could help accelerate sales.

Per Yankee Group, Apple currently has a 20 percent share of the market in the United States in terms of smartphone ownership. By next year, that number is expected to reach 27 percent and the following year after that, 33 percent.

?During this time, the Android ecosystem stays flat,? Mr. Howe said. ?And the reason is they have a leaky ecosystem.

?They don?t have the ecosystem loyalty that the iPhone does - that is what is killing them,? he said.

?You have a 76 percent loyalty across all of Android and the loyalty is substantially lower with 91 percent loyalty in the Apple ecosystem.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York