I strongly suspect most users that buy Android phones "because they prefer it" are really preferring the hardware of their specific phone. That's probably true

I strongly suspect most users that buy Android phones "because they prefer it" are really preferring the hardware of their specific phone. That's probably true to some extent, and Android should still get credit in those cases because it was specifically designed to support a wide variety of hardware. Contrast with iOS which was designed to produce the best possible experience on a few specific hardware platforms, which means that iPhones are stuck on 3.5" screens and resolutions that are exact multiples of the original.