That's interesting, but I suspect it was biased a bit by the affordability and ubiquity of Android devices. It's hard to turn around in a mobile store these days without bumping into a load of extremely cheap Android phones.
Perhaps people are planning to get Android devices but would love an iPhone if it was the same price. It's the same with cars. If you surveyed people most would say they plan to get a Toyota, but only because Ferrari is outside their price range.
It has been argued for years that pitting Android against the iPhone is unfair because Android comes in so many devices at many price points whereas the iPhone is just that--the iPhone. There are just two models (the previous, and the current. It used to be just one until 2 years ago.), one hardware spec (with varying memory sizes, sure).
But that's the game Apple chose to play. They intentionally crippled themselves (even if they don't think so), so this is really a comparison of Apple's strategy vs. Google's strategy. And Google's strategy seems to be winning in some aspects.
Google and Apple aren't playing the same game. Apple doesn't care about market share, they care about profits. Google cares only about market share: the OS is free, they give search revenue to manufacturers and app revenue to carriers.
Both strategies are winning given their specific (and different) goals.
In this case the question was "which phone do you desire?" I think that most people would answer that differently than "which phone do you plan to get."
I actually couldn't find a copy of the survey to see what the actual phrasing of the question was - which is why I raised the question of bias. If the question was phrased the way you quote then it would be more accurate.
Counterpoint: AT&T is running a huge campaign right now that you can buy an iPhone 3GS for $49- in fact it is the lead on the iphone page on their site:
Perhaps people are planning to get Android devices but would love an iPhone if it was the same price. It's the same with cars. If you surveyed people most would say they plan to get a Toyota, but only because Ferrari is outside their price range.