Analyst company Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has posted some data which has revealed that a torrent of Windows Phone users in USA are abandoning the platform for iOS and Android.

Their data shows that over the last 2 years Windows Phone has retained only 19% of their users, with the vast majority abandoning the platform for iOS and Android.

During this period Android loyalty actually increased from 77% to 86% while iOS retention dipped slightly from 79 to 78%.

“The reasons why users select Android or iOS, and when and how users switch between them, are unclear,” said Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP. “Unlike almost every other product in technology, users cannot easily articulate why they like one or another operating system. One variable that seems to affect operating system switching behavior is mobile carrier switching. The time a user switches mobile carriers also is a logical time to switch operating systems. Our analysis suggests that switching mobile carriers correlates with iOS users switching to Android, but not Android users to switching to iOS.”

CIRP bases its findings on quarterly surveys totalling 4,000 US subjects that activated a mobile phone from July 2013 through June 2015.

45% of ex-Windows Phone users went to Android, 35% to iOS and 1% to Blackberry. Conversely 2% of Android users went to Windows Phone, 1% of iOS users chose to move to Windows Phone and 7% of ex-Blackberry users chose our OS, while 4% of basic smartphone users chose to upgrade to Windows Phone, and 5% of first time smartphone owners.

Given that Windows Phone numbers in USA have been relatively steady at more than 5 million over the last few years, the picture indicates that the Windows Phone market has seen regular and massive turn over over the period. At only 19% loyalty there is clearly a lot of pressure on Windows Phone users to switch to other platforms, likely largely due to the app gap, and we hope Microsoft’s move to address via Project Astoria and Universal Windows Apps will improve this situation going forward.

The full report can be seen here.