Smartphones have become integral in our day-to-day lives. We use them to communicate, work, make payments, and book flights, among many other things.
But how far have smartphones grown over the years? What is their future?
Here are some exciting smartphone usage statistics and trends that answer these questions.
Top 10 Smartphone Usage Statistics (Editor’s Pick)
- Smartphones were the second most popular consumer electronics in 2022.
- As of 2022, 53% of Americans had never gone more than 24hrs without their smartphones.
- 93% of American college graduates owned a smartphone in 2021.
- In 2021, 58% of smartphone users aged 18-34 used an iPhone.
- 84% of women in low and middle-income countries owned a smartphone in 2021.
- Apple iPhones had a 27.6% global smartphone market share as of January 2023.
- 1.747 billion phones were sold globally in 2021.
- iPhone 12 was the most-sold smartphone in the world as of 2021.
- 25% of internet users did online shopping on their smartphones in 2022.
- Samsung is the biggest smartphone vendor in Africa as of 2023.
Infographic
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics.png" alt="Top 10 Smartphone Usage Statistics" width="768" border="0" height="1002.24" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics-768x1002.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics-230x300.png 230w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics-785x1024.png 785w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics-1177x1536.png 1177w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-10-smartphone-usage-statistics.png 1200w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
Smartphone Usage Statistics
1. There are over 6.8 billion smartphone subscriptions globally as of 2023.
Over 100 million smartphone subscriptions are expected to be added yearly till 2027.
2. The projected number of smartphones worldwide will hit 7.7 billion in 2027.
This means the global smartphone penetration will be 89%, where 9 out of every 10 people will own a smartphone.
3. Smartphones were the second most popular consumer electronics in 2022.
Smartphones were owned by 95.8% of surveyed consumers in 2022, only behind mobile phones of any kind (96.1%).
| Electronic Device | Global Usage |
|---|---|
| Smartphone | 95.8% |
| Laptop/Desktops | 59% |
| Tablets | 34% |
| Smartwatches/Wristbands | 28.7% |
| Game Consoles | 20.3% |
| TV Streaming Devices | 15.9% |
| Smart Home Devices | 15.2% |
| Feature Phones | 7.7% |
| VR Devices | 5.4% |
4. Filipinos averaged 5 hrs and 47 minutes on their smartphones in 2021.
On average, Filipinos spent over five and a half hours daily on their smartphones in 2021. Most of this time was spent on social media sites.
| Nation | Average Time Spent on Smartphone |
|---|---|
| The Philippines | 5 hrs 47 minutes |
| Thailand | 5 hrs 28 minutes |
| Brazil | 5 hrs 25 minutes |
| Colombia | 5 hrs 9 minutes |
| South Africa | 5 hrs 9 minutes |
5. 46% of Americans spent 4-5 hours on their phones daily in 2021.
Another 22% of respondents spent 3-4 hrs on average, and just 5% claimed they only use their phones for 1-2 hours daily.
6. As of 2022, 53% of Americans had never gone more than 24hrs without their smartphones.
The study also found that 64% of American smartphone owners admitted to using their devices on the toilet. Another 36% said they would give up their pets to keep their smartphones, and 53% said they would try to save their smartphones first in a house fire.
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones.png" alt="How Americans Love Their Smartphones" width="768" border="0" height="419.9298245614" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones-768x420.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones-300x164.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones-1024x560.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones-1536x840.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/americans-love-smartphones.png 1710w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
7. 76% of smartphone owners used it to chat and send messages in 2022.
In addition, another 70% used their smartphones to send emails, and 61% used their devices to access online banking.
8. As of 2021, 54.8% of all web traffic was driven by smartphones.
This represented a massive 76% jump compared to 2020.
Smartphone User Demographics
9. As of 2021, 80% of women checked their phones before saying “Good Morning” to their partners.
Another 17% of women have checked their phones during an intimate bedroom activity.
10. In 2021, 72% of men did not allow their partners to touch their phones.
A further 43% stated that they had caught their partners going through their devices without permission.
11. In 2021, 96% of Americans aged 18-29 owned a smartphone.
This was a sharp increase from 2011, when only 35% of adults owned any phone.
12. Hispanic people had the highest phone ownership in 2021.
85% of Hispanic and White people (individually) in the United States owned a smartphone in 2021. Black people closely followed at 83%.
13. 89% of urban folks in the US owned a smartphone in 2021.
In the same smartphone ownership group were 84% of suburban residents and 80% of rural dwellers.
14. 93% of American college graduates owned a smartphone in 2021.
About 75% of high school certificate holders in the United States also owned a smartphone in 2021. Likewise, 89% of those who went to some college had a smartphone in the reporting period.
15. In 2021, 58% of smartphone users aged 18-34 used an iPhone.
In contrast, most Americans who prefer Android phones are older, with 53% of users aged 35 and 54 opting for this operating system.
16. 84% of women in low and middle-income countries owned a smartphone in 2021.
60% of these women had access to the internet.
17. More Kenyan women owned a smartphone in 2021 than in 2020.
34% of women in Kenya owned a smartphone in 2021, which was 2% more than in 2021. In the same year (2021), 49% of Kenyan men owned a smartphone.
18. Affordability was the most significant barrier to women owning a smartphone.
Of the 372 million women without a smartphone in 2022, the most significant reasons were the lack of funds to purchase one, literacy, digital skills, safety, and security.
19. As of 2021, 42% of kids had their first smartphone by the age of 10.
71% got theirs by 12, and another 91% had their first phones when they turned 14. Most teens with smartphones spend most of their time on social media, with Instagram accounting for 53% of their social media usage.
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone.png" alt="When Kids Got Their First Smartphones" width="768" border="0" height="419.9298245614" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone-768x420.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone-300x164.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone-1024x560.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone-1536x840.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kids-first-smartphone.png 1710w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
Smartphone Market Size Statistics
20. As of January 2023, there are an estimated 1.74 billion iPhone users worldwide.
This represents an increase from the 1.57 billion user count at the close of 2022.
The United States leads the world with over 136 million iPhone users as of January 2023.
The iPhone had a 57.78% market share in the USA, 23.87% in China, and 3.55% in India.
| Region | iPhone Market Share |
|---|---|
| North America | 54.76% |
| South America | 14.31% |
| Asia | 15.94% |
| Europe | 35.87% |
| Oceania | 55.54% |
| Africa | 14.22% |
22. As of 2022, Samsung topped the total smartphone shipments globally.
Samsung shipped the most smartphones globally at the close of 2022, with over 260 million units pushed out to buyers. It was followed by Apple (226.4 million), Xiaomi (153.1 million), OPPO (103.3 million), and Vivo (99 million).
23. 1.747 billion phones were sold globally in 2021.
Of this, 1.5 billion were smartphones, while the remaining 233 million were feature phones.
As of 2023, Android leads other smartphone operating systems with a 71.62% market share. This is followed by iOS (27.68%), Samsung (0.35%), KaiOS (0.11%), Windows (0.02%), and Linux (0.01%).
25. iPhone 12 was the most-sold smartphone in the world as of 2021.
Apple occupied all the top 5 spots of the most sold smartphones in 2021, with iPhone 12 leading with 2.9%. This was followed by iPhone 12 Pro Max (2.2%), iPhone 13 (2.1%), iPhone 12 Pro (2.1%), and iPhone 11 (2%). Samsung Galaxy A12, Xiaomi Redmi 9A, and Xiaomi Redmi 9 were the only non-Apple products in the top 10.
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021.png" alt="Top 5 Most Sold Smartphones in 2021" width="768" border="0" height="345.38869434717" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021-768x345.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021-300x135.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021-1024x461.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021-1536x691.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/top-5-most-sold-smartphone-2021.png 1999w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
26. iPhone 14 Pro Max was the most-sold smartphone model in the US in 2022.
At the close of 2022, iPhone 14 Pro Max accounted for about 23% of smartphone sales. All the newly released iPhone models that year combined accounted for 48% of all US smartphone sales.
Smartphone Marketing Statistics
27. Smartphones were the most used devices in global e-commerce in 2021.
Of the $5.2 trillion from e-commerce sales in 2021, 31% could be attributed to mobile shopping done through smartphone apps.
28. 25% of internet users did online shopping on their smartphones in 2022.
The top countries leading in mobile online shopping included Hong Kong (40.9%), Taiwan (40.6%), Saudi Arabia (35.5%), and Singapore (34.3%).
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country.png" alt="Online Shopping Using Smartphones per Country" width="768" border="0" height="281.6128064032" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country-768x282.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country-300x110.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country-1024x375.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country-1536x563.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/online-shopping-smartphones-country.png 1999w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
Smartphone App Statistics
29. Google Play Store had over 3.7 million smartphone apps in January 2023.
Over 97% of these are free apps, with only 113,918 apps needing a purchase.
On average, about 2,564 apps are published daily on Google Play Store.
30. App Store had over 1.6 million smartphone apps as of Q3 2022.
The Google Play Store had over 3.5 million apps in the same period.
31. 255 billion smartphone apps were downloaded globally in 2022.
This is up from 230 billion in 2021 and is in line with expected growth to see mobile apps generate over $613 billion globally by 2025.
32. Gaming apps were the most downloaded on App Store in 2022.
At the close of 2022, gaming apps represented 12.68% of all downloaded apps.
Business apps followed this at 10.35%, then education apps at 9.8%.
33. App Store generated higher revenues than Google Play Store in 2022.
Despite having lower overall downloads, iOS users racked up a combined $21.2 billion in consumer spending on smartphone apps against $10.4 billion by Android users in 2022.
34. WhatsApp was the most preferred smartphone messaging app in 2022.
There were 2 billion WhatsApp users across all smartphones worldwide as of January 2022. This was followed by WeChat (1.26 billion) and Facebook Messenger (988 million). The dominant app within the US was iMessage.
Smartphone Statistics by Region
35. China had the highest number of smartphone users in 2022.
There were over 900 million smartphone owners in China as of 2022, three times more than the United States at third with 249 million. That means 63% of Chinese citizens are smartphone users.
| Country | Number of Smartphone Users (2022) |
|---|---|
| China | 910.14 million |
| India | 647.53 million |
| The United States | 249.29 million |
| Indonesia | 192.15 million |
| Brazil | 138.85 million |
36. Germany had the highest smartphone penetration rate in the world as of 2022.
Despite ranking 13th on the global scale of smartphone users (68.68 million), over 82% of German citizens had a smartphone. This was followed by Japan (78.4%), Italy (77.5%), the United States (73.7%), and Russia (73.2%).
<p><strong>Please include attribution to vpnAlert.com with this graphic.</strong><br><br><a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/smartphone-usage-statistics/" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country.png" alt="Global Smartphone Penetration by Country" width="768" border="0" height="281.6128064032" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country-768x282.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country-300x110.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country-1024x375.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country-1536x563.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/global-smartphone-penetration-country.png 1999w" sizes="auto"></a></p>
As of the end of January 2023, Apple had the largest share of the mobile vendor market, with 27.63%. This was followed closely by Samsung (27.1%), Xiaomi (12.51%), and OPPO (6.4%).
38. Samsung is the biggest smartphone vendor in Africa as of 2023.
In January 2023, Samsung claimed the top spot with 33.93% of the market in its pocket. This is twice Apple’s share (14.22%), Huawei’s (11.12%), Tecno’s (9.38%), Xiaomi’s (6.3%), and Infinix’s (5.94%).
39. Samsung is the largest mobile vendor in Asia in 2023.
Samsung takes the most significant slice of the Asian mobile vendor market with 22.96%. Xiaomi came second with 16.94%, and Apple took third with 15.99%.
Other notable mentions are OPPO (10.79%), Vivo (9.81%), and Realme (6.94%).
In Europe, Apple is followed by Samsung (31.44%), Xiaomi (13.74%), Huawei (6.43%), Oppo (2.37%), and Motorola (1.69%.)
It is followed by Motorolla (17.71%), Apple (14.31%), Xiaomi (13.91%), Huawei (3.66%), and LG (2.7%).
Samsung follows this at 28.81%. Motorola took third with 5.15%, then Google (2%), LG (1.7%), and Xiaomi (1.69%) slotted in behind.
43. Macau had the most mobile phones per capita worldwide as of 2021.
There were over 880,000 smartphone users in Macau as of 2021, making it the region with the highest number of mobile phone users per capita. Hong Kong, Gaza Strip, UAE, and Seychelles followed.
Smartphone Fun Facts
44. The first smartphone was the Simon Personal Communicator, launched in 1992.
The Simon Personal Communicator launched in late 1992 with a touch-screen and rudimentary predictive typing features. Users could make and receive calls, emails, facsimiles, and cellular pages. The phone was also equipped with a calendar, electronic sketchpad, world time clock, and address book, among many other features.
It cost $899, and 50,000 units were sold before it was discontinued in 1995.
45. The Ericsson R380 was the first touch-screen smartphone.
Launched in 1999, the Ericsson R380 was the first mobile phone to run on the Symbian OS, which preceded the Android OS and dominated the phone market until 2010.
46. Apple makes the most expensive smartphones in the world.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max (1TB) is the costliest mainstream smartphone in the market as of early 2023, retailing from $1,599 at launch.
47. The first iPhone was launched in 2007.
Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone on January 9th, 2007. It came with a touch-screen, camera, and web browsing abilities, among many other features.
By November of the same year, over 1.4 million units had been sold, with the base model retailing at $499.
48. Android names OS versions after sweet treats.
There have been 13 Android versions, with the 14th version launching in the third quarter of 2023. So far, Android has made a habit of naming each version after a popular dessert, with the current version (Android 13) called Android Tiramisu.
Interesting, Are They Not?
The evolution of smartphones continues to blow our minds with every new release. Samsung just launched its latest flagship model, and Apple will do the same at the end of the year with the anticipated iPhone 15.
Remember, no matter which smartphone you use, always use a VPN to maintain your security and privacy.
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