A fresh survey conducted by marketing firm Gfk revealed that smartphone users do not have any strong feelings of loyalty towards their handsets.

According to the survey, smartphone owners ware ready to switch to another brand or OS in case a new model of phone or OS is offering more than the present one.

Gfk surveyed around 3,000 smartphone owners Europe, Brazil and the United States, and found that 56 per cent of respondents saying that they were keeping their options open regarding which phone they would purchase next.

Commenting on the findings, lead analyst Ryan Garner at the GfK survey said, "People are really keeping their options open."

Only 25 per cent of smartphone users said that they would remain loyal to one operating system. The highest level of loyalty was found among Apple iPhone owners. Fifty-nine per cent of Apple iPhone owners said that they would stick with Apple.

On the other hand, software-giant Microsoft could gain the lowest level of loyalty at merely 21 per cent.

Nowadays, customers have a broad range of brands to choose smartphones from. Apart from Apple, they can now go for smartphones based on Android, Windows Phone 7, Meego, RIM OS and Symbian.