A recent study by market research company GfK puts Apple (News - Alert) at the top of the charts when it comes to keeping its customers loyal to the iPhone. This doesn’t come as a surprise, since most people with iPhones have a tendency to avoid switching to other phones. The reason why you see these figures is much more interesting, however.

The study reports that, while many people are very happy with their iPhones, about one in five who own an iPhone and iPad report that switching from the Apple smartphones to another one would be more difficult than changing a bank account or electricity provider. The feeling makes people stick to what they have instead of searching for greener pastures elsewhere.

GfK continues its report, saying that while 48 percent of Blackberry users and roughly 60 percent of Android (News - Alert) users wish to stick to their phones, 84 percent of iPhone users wish to remain with their smartphones. A third of the smartphone users in the study claimed that they wouldn’t switch to another phone because they didn’t want to renounce the use of applications particular to that phone. Another third of the users didn’t want to learn to use another phone.

Ryan Garner of GfK commented that “the barriers to switching smartphones show the importance of the age-old mindset, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ This mindset has only hardened with the growth of connected devices and rapidly improving user experiences, while cross device accessibility of content is also delivering great benefits to consumers.”

The iPhone (News - Alert) perhaps owes its success to the fact that it has made a much simpler user experience compared to other smartphones and doesn’t seem to make a switch to another phone worth the trouble.