Smartphones have become the most popular consumer electronic devices in the world, making them a central part of everyday life. As a consumer or business, it would pay dividends to know interesting smartphone stats that influence our lives.
Smartphone Statistics 2023
- The global smartphone market declined by to 328 million units in Q1 2022
- Samsung is one of the only top-five smartphone brands to grow QoQ
- Its market share rose last quarter, taking the top spot from Apple in Q1
- Apple’s shipments declined to reach 59 million units in Q1 2022
- Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo’s component supply issues continue, causing a quarterly and annual decline in their respective shipments
Before the smartphone industry heads for a slowdown, let’s take a look at some recent and positive smartphone statistics that show signs of confidence.
Smartphone Usage
1. Users spend one-third of their waking hours on mobile
Mobile usage continues to rise globally as people spend an average of 4 hours 48 minutes in 2021 – up from 30% in 2019. Users in Brazil, Indonesia, and South Korea crossed 5 hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.
2. 7 out of 10 minutes on mobile was spent on social, photo & video apps in 2021
There was a significant increase in screen time, accelerated by the pandemic, solidifying the habit today. Consumers are engaging more in social media, communication, and photo & video apps.
The increase in market share in time spent does not come at the expense of current habits. Rather, consumers spend their traditional ‘non-mobile’ time into time spent in apps and games.
In India, for example, there has been a 45% increase in time spent gaming on smartphones during the pandemic.
3. One-third of consumers check their phones within 5 minutes of waking up
While addiction may be a strong word, consumers check their smartphones round the clock. Nearly one-third of customers worldwide check their phone within five minutes of waking up in the morning. Close to half of the population checks their phone sometimes during the night.
4. People check their phones 344 times per day
On average, Americans check their phones 344 times a day, averaging once every 4 minutes. And globally around 20% of consumers check their smartphone more than 50 times a day – that’s once about every 20 minutes of every waking hour. This seems unsurprising as more and more people become heavily dependent on their smartphones.
Popular Smartphone Stats
1. There are 6.5+ billion smartphone subscriptions today (2021)
The number of smartphone subscriptions has surpassed worldwide today, crossing 6 billion today, and is estimated to grow further by several hundred million in the next few years. China followed by India and the United States are the top markets with the highest number of smartphone users.
2. Half the world owns a smartphone
According to a recent study from Strategy Analytics, half of the world’s entire population now owns a smartphone in June 2021. Around 4 billion people own a smartphone today. It has taken 27 years to reach this significant milestone.
Read More: Getting a Smartphone Loan: 3 Effective Ways
3. The rise of smartphone-only users
A large number of the population today is “smartphone-only” internet users – meaning they own a smartphone but do not have traditional home broadband service. About 75% of internet users will access the internet using their smartphones by 2025. That’s nearly 3.7 billion people.
4. The iPhone 12 was the best selling smartphone (2021)
The iPhone 12 was the highest-selling model last year. In fact, the top five models were from Apple, and the top three models – iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the iPhone 13 contributed to 41% of Apple’s total sales in 2021.
5. Android dominates the smartphone OS market
Android maintains its position as the world’s leading operating system, controlling the mobile operating system with close to 70% market share, while iOS accounts for 25% of the mobile OS market.
Read more: Increased Smartphone Accessibility With the New Android 11 Features
The Mobile App Market
1. 230 billion new app downloads (2021)
Global app downloads reached 230 billion across iOS, Google Play, and third-party Android stores, up by 5% year-over-year. The largest markets for app downloads in the first quarter of 2022 were India, the United States, and Brazil.
2. USD 170 billion in-app store spend
Consumers’ spending on apps also grew last year. 2021 proved to be the biggest year for consumer spending, which reached USD 170 billion. Top categories for spending include games, entertainment, and photo & video apps.
3. TikTok was the most downloaded app
In 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded app worldwide. The short-video sharing platform was downloaded 656 million times last year. It was followed by social media and communication apps such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
4. YouTube has more downloads on Android than the world’s population
YouTube has become the definitive platform for watching videos with 70% of users accessing YouTube on their smartphones. As of 2021, the app has been downloaded more than 10 billion times.
Wrapping Up
Smartphone ownership is growing rapidly across the world, as evidenced by the statistics presented above. But the beginning of 2022 is not the right side of past trends. Leading smartphone manufacturers Samsung and Apple are ramping down production by 30 million and 20 million units respectively.
Nevertheless, large manufacturers do not need to hit the panic button anytime soon. With the arrival of 5G technology and innovations in product development (e.g., foldable screens) together with consumer-friendly mobile device financing models, they can certainly hope to come out of this slump unscathed.
Resources:
- Counterpointresearch.com
- Cnbc.com
- Deloitte.com
- Data.ai
- Moneycontrol.com
- Reviews.org
- Statista.com
