Android has peaked, forecasters tell Fortune, and while the Google-made smartphone, as well as Samsung's much-talked about Galaxy S IV release, have garnered headlines recently with smartphones which can compete with Apple, they're still going to lose at the cash register, say consumer forecasters. 

A survey by 16,000 smartphone customers has revealed some startling news about what we can expect moving forward in the cutthroat world of technological innovation for smartphones and sales they drive.  Conventional wisdom says Apple should be losing ground, but it's Google's Android and Samsung who are most apt to lose customers. 

The Yankee Group's Benjamin Howe, writes:

"Samsung's Radio City Music Hall launch of its Galaxy S IV smartphone made good headlines, but consumer buying data shows that at the checkout counter, Apple continues to eat Samsung's lunch."

The bottom line is that Google's Android phone has peaked, but Apple's iOS can look forward to steady growth, according to consumers surveyed. 

The key to Apple's dominance of the marketplace is one of customer loyalty. Writes Howe, "Apple's 'black hole' ecosystem captures subscribers who never leave, while Android smartphones are losing one out of every six customers to other manufacturers."

Platform loyalty among Apple smartphone buyers trumps the predominance of Android users. According to the consumer report, about half of all smartphones use an Android set, and only around 30 percent use an iPhone. 

But of the respondents who said they are planning on buying another smartphone within the next 6 months, 42 percent said they were buying an iPhone and 42 percent said an Android. That's not where Apple shines, though. It's the repeat buyers who set Apple apart.

Of those surveyed, 91 percent of iPhone users planned to buy an iPhone with their next purchase and only 6 percent plan to switch to an Android. Conversely, only  76 percent of current Android users plan to buy an Android as their next iPhone. That leaves 24 percent unaccounted for, and 18 percent of those surveyed said they planned to switch to an iPhone. 

Howe smartly likens the marketplace between Apple and Android to two buckets of water. One, Android, has a leaky bottom, where one out of five owners are lost. The other, Apple, still loses customers, but at a much lower rate. If both buckets were placed in the rain, in this metaphor, the marketplace, the Apple bucket would fill up much faster. 

"Think of the Apple and Android ecosystems as two buckets of water. New smartphone buyers - mostly upgrading feature phone owners - fall like rain into the two big buckets about equally, with a smaller number falling into Windows Phone and BlackBerry buckets. However, the Android bucket leaks badly, losing about one in five of all the owners put into it. The Apple bucket leaks only about 7 percent of its contents, so it retains more of the customers that fall into it. The Apple bucket will fill up faster and higher than the Android one, regardless of the fact that the Apple bucket may have had fewer owners in it to begin with."