Analyst: iPhone 5 could double iOS market share

The next version of the iPhone is poised to gather a whole lot of attention.

So much attention, in fact, that one analyst says it could be a catalyst that leads to Apple’s already impressive market share in the mobile sector to double.

Piper Jaffray conducted a survey of existing mobile users and found that 64% of them plan to purchase an iPhone as their next device.

Of the sample in the survey, the plurality of responders already had an iPhone. That puts it at odds with the actual numbers in the market, where Android phones are the most dominant.

In fact, in the Pipe study, only 17% had an Android device, so take these results with a grain of salt.

29% of the people in the survey were existing iPhone users and 28% owned a Blackberry. Those numbers right there almost provide the full 64% of people who said they want the iPhone 5, so this doesn’t really suggest a mass exodus from Android to iOS.

Nevertheless, Piper analyst Gene Munster crunched the numbers and realized that if the represented amount of people surveyed actually go through with their iPhone-buying desires, Apple’s market share could double. That would mean it ends up commanding as much as 64% of the market in the US.

In other parts of the world, the iPhone has far less of a stranglehold, and intstead Android is the clear and undisputed leader. But here in the US, it has been a very constant game of back-and-forth.