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Android Users Are Switching to iPhone at a Record Rate

About one-third of iPhone customers this quarter came from Android.

Apple is convincing more and more Android users to switch to iPhone.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that around 30 percent of customers who bought an iPhone in the most recent quarter (the three months ended September 26) were switchers from Android. It was the highest rate of switchers that Apple has ever measured, Cook said.

This is perhaps even more impressive when you consider that the quarter only included two business days in which the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were available. All told, Apple sold a total of 48.04 million iPhones in the quarter, which is up from 39.27 million a year ago.

This is not the first time that Apple has said that a record rate of iPhone buyers were switching over from Android. In July, Cook trotted out the same line ("We experienced the highest switcher rate from Android that we've ever measured"), though he didn't at that time disclose a percentage. And in April, Cook also claimed that there was "a higher rate of switchers than we've seen in previous iPhone cycles."

What could explain the continued increases? For one, Apple released an app this quarter that helps Android users transfer their data to a new iPhone. (Android partisans responded to the app's release with a rash of poor reviews, which is pretty funny.) It should also be noted that Apple has a recycling program that allows customers to trade "eligible smartphones" for credit toward the purchase of a new iPhone.

And with wireless carriers and Apple itself falling over themselves devising new programs to effectively new iPhones for just a few dollars per month, it wouldn't be surprising to see this trend continue through the holidays.