Interesting Smartphone Stats in 2014

There’s no denying that mobile and tablet usage has skyrocketed over the last few years, and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon.

If you’re curious about just how much people use their mobile devices, you might be intrigued about these interesting smartphone stats in 2014.

 

The Huge Smartphone Presence

I thought I would start off this article by talking about just how widespread smartphone usage is – learning about the how many devices are being used by people around the world is perhaps one of the most interesting smartphone stats, and it’s even more interesting when you consider how quickly the world has adopted such a large usage.

 

In 2014, it’s been suggested that 4.55 billion people own mobile phones – to put that into perspective, that is around 63{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of the entire world’s population.  Whilst this takes feature phones as well as smartphones into account, it’s still quite impressive that over half of the world’s population owns some form of mobile device.

 

38.5{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of mobile users are using smartphones, which means there are a total of 1.75 billion people using smartphones worldwide. It has been predicted that by 2017, 69{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of the population will be using mobile devices, and smartphone ownership will be at 2.5 billion.

 

Smartphone Penetration in Developed Countries

 

When it comes to regions like North America, Europe or Asia, smartphone usage is much higher than other parts of the world. In fact, studies suggest that 90{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of American adults own a mobile phone, and 58{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of adults have a smartphone.

 

Over the next few years, smartphone penetration in China, Australia and Japan will reach over 50{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} for the first time ever, and manufacturers are working to develop cheaper budget handsets aimed towards emerging markets. Over the next 20 years, we could see smartphone penetration reach all-time highs, and in the near future, it might be commonplace for every human adult to own a smartphone device.

 

Our Smartphone Addictions

It’s great to see such a widespread usage of smartphone devices, but it might be interesting to learn just how addicted some owners are. According to a study, 65{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of smartphone owners suggested that they could not live without their smartphone. 40{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} of users would give up coffee before giving up their smartphone device, and 18{76ac33845123b25982ffda0eb6f606179ce899e677f3c86d035d7b9fa6b6d307} even said they would give up bathing every day to keep using their smartphone.

 

The study also suggests that smartphone users are likely to play games for between 14.6 and 4.5 hours per month. Each day, 1.8 million smartphones are sold, which is around 5 times the amount of babies that are born. 27 billion SMS messages are sent and 12 billion calls are made – when you consider that only 4.55 billion people own cell phones, it’s pretty crazy.

 

These smartphone stats are certainly interesting – it’s quite intriguing to see just how widespread smartphone usage is across the globe, and also learn about how reliant many people have become on their smartphone device. Do you think this new age addiction should be destroyed, or is worldwide smartphone usage the start of a new era?