In your other discussion thread (on VO2Max) I already linked to some research that suggests a correlation, for trained apneists, between lung volume and breathhold duration, as well as between height and BHD (and the lung volume and height are probably fairly correlated, so...)
For completeness in this reply, here it is again:
Breath-hold diving performance factors
Do you want more...?
Well, OK... you asked for it...
Humans share with seals the ability to contract the spleen and increase circulating hematocrit, which may improve apneic performance by enhancing gas storage. Seals have large spleens and while human spleen size is small in comparison, it shows ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
(The one above also notes the importance of spleen size, since it's an extra store of O2 - see extra article below...)
The determining mechanisms of a maximal hyperoxic apnea duration in elite apneists have remained unexplored. We tested the hypothesis that maximal hyperoxic apnea duration in elite apneists is related to forced vital capacity (FVC) but not the central chemoreflex (for CO<sub>2</sub>). Eleven...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Physiology of static breath holding in elite apneists
(Above notes the importance of lung volume.)
Immersion water sports involve long-term apneas; therefore, athletes must physiologically adapt to maintain muscle oxygenation, despite not performing pulmonary ventilation. Breath-holding (i.e., apnea) is common in water sports, and it involves a ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Having said all of that (or, rather, cited all of that...), I think one of the key things to note in the above is that they are typically working with
trained apneists (as I already mentioned in the very first sentence).
Unfortunately, I think it is at this point where many of these things start to break down in practice...
When it comes to the rest of us mere mortals (rather than those who have spent years preparing, training, competing, pushing towards their limits), there are
so many other confounding factors that come into play when we hold our breath that it becomes far more tricky to see clear correlations for each specific physiological/psychological/environmental/etc. feature you may want to pick.
I mean, even looking at the scatter in the plots for the first article I linked above (i.e. figures 1, 2 & 3, showing vital capacity against BHD, etc.), I'm struck by how much variation there is, even amongst competitive apneists - and I find it hard to believe it'd be anything other than
even more so for the rest of us...
It basically means that, unless you are already a competitive breath-holder, who is working hard to find any possible (allowable!) way to train & maximise your BHD, there are too many factors to consider when comparing yourself against someone else around you who is in a roughly similar situation. In the end, the answer is that there will be numerous reasons someone else may or may not have a better BHD than you - and it could even vary quite noticeably from day to day!
I guess, then, the real questions in all of this are:
Why are you asking these questions?
What sort of answers are you hoping to discover?
And, even more relevant, what difference will those answers make to your own breath-holds?
---
Extra bonus article about the spleen:
Spleen volume and blood flow response to repeated breath-hold apneas