Global smartphone adoption nears 10 per cent

BEANCOUTERS at Asymco have released detailed data about global smartphone adoption revealing that it has hit nearly 10 per cent of the world population.

The study shows penetration of smartphones in individual countries around the world with data from Netsize Guide, Informa, Google and Ipsos. The leading country for smartphone penetration is Singapore with 54 per cent of the population owning one.

Tomi Ahonen, an analyst behind the study said, "The data from the two sources is not really measuring exactly the same things, and there are considerable discrepancies on some of the data, but digging into both sources, we can get pretty good clarity on the actual national per-capita rates of smartphones, which should be very useful data for those who are interested in smartphones, their users and the related ecosystems."

The UK ranks at 12th place with 30 per cent of Brits on board the smartphone wagon. The largest country to have a significant level of adoption is unsurprisingly the US, with 35 per cent penetration.

The study includes 42 countries on every continent. Out of these, 19 have smartphone adoption levels of 25 per cent or higher. India comes in last of the lot with just three per cent adoption and China is third to last with eight per cent.

The study also shows that there are 3.7 billion non-smartphones and 600 million smartphones in use, more than six times as many feature phones as smartphones.

Mobile makers continue to gear towards smartphones, with some dropping feature phones from their portfolios. Nokia is one of the big names that plans to reach the masses with non-smartphone devices. µ