Half the World Now Owns a Smartphone

According to new research from Strategy Analytics, half the world's entire population now owns a smartphone in June 2021. Some 4 billion people use a smartphone today. It has taken 27 years to reach this historic milestone. From a report: Yiwen Wu, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "We estimate the global smartphone user base has risen dramatically from just 30k people in 1994 to 1.00 billion in 2012, and a record 3.95 billion today in June 2021. With an estimated 7.90 billion people in total on the planet in June 2021, it means 50% of the whole world now owns a smartphone. It has taken 27 years to reach this historic milestone."

Re: Some 4 billion people use a smartphone today.

[OrangeTide]

literally nobody asked you

Half the world owns *A* smartphone?

[mark-t]

I don't know how practical it would be to try to share one smartphone among so many people. Most would never even get a turn in an entire year.

Re: Half the world owns *A* smartphone?

[OrangeTide]

passed along every microsecond and you can expect a turn every 49.7 days.

Re:

[mark-t]

I suppose that's one way to go...

And of course each person's monthly share of the bill would be fractions of a penny.

Re:

[Rockoon]

I wont be paying my share. One of you is going to have to come up with it if you want this great idea to continue.

How do they define "smartphone"?

[smoot123]

Most people seem to think smart phone was the iPhone, released in 2007.

If they think the first smart phone was released in '94, they're using a much different definition. They probably think a Blackberry counts (and they're not wrong). The headline just might be a bit misleading.

Re:How do they define "smartphone"?

[aitikin]

Was curious myself, apparently they're referencing the IBM Simon [wikipedia.org] as the first "smartphone."

Re:

[dfghjk]

"The Simon could be upgraded to run third party applications either by inserting a PCMCIA card or by downloading an application to the phone's internal memory."

This would mean that it was a smartphone. Any other definition of "smartphone" would either be unreasonable or would identify devices older than 1994. Smartphones are phones capable of running third party apps.

Re:

[iggymanz]

I'd go with Ericsson R380 in 2000, advertised as a "smart phone"

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[dfghjk]

Nokia 9210 Communicator was released in 2000, Microsoft Pocket PC was released on 2000. Windows CE was released in 1996, although not clear there were any phones based on it.

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[iggymanz]

Communicator was in November though, so later. And the Pocket PC of 2000 didn't make phone calls, just a PDA. The phone edition wasn't until 2002

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[fermion]

This is good enough. The game changer is going to basic educational resources, resources that have not been dumbed down for students in developed countries with 30 second attention spans and a need for Disney to tell them what to think. A kid, such as I have seem, sitting on the clear side of a mountain where or a school house that can only afford teachers and wife. If we think the job market is tough, wait until it is cheap enough for every kid who wants one to get an education. Right now we are lonely com

Re:

[dfghjk]

Only an idiot thinks that Apple invented the smartphone, and the original iPhone was not even a smartphone, it was a fixed function device. Smartphones are devices that can execute installable applications.

Apple literally marketed the iPhone as being superior to smartphones that had been on the market for many years.

I hope anyone who remembers Palm phones such as the 650 were smartphones introduced before the iPhone. Symbian published a smartphone OS used by many manufacturers (Sony, Nokia) many years bef

Re:

[bn-7bc]

Well maybe calling the idiots is unhelpful. I'd wager that to a lot of people, pre iphone launch, iphones where the big bulky things carried by geeks and/or business people. Well geeks carry around all kinds of weird tech and buisness people had smartphones so the didn't have to carre a phone and a pda. Enter the iphone, suddenly the non geek next door had a smartphone and you (well maybe you non geek brother/sister) wanted one. What changed? Well apple did what they are best at, packaging existing technolo

Re:

[quenda]

and the original iPhone was not even a smartphone, it was a fixed function device.

The original iPhone was badly flawed (no cut&paste, WTF!?) but it did have a usable web browser, which is the relevant thing here.
Symbian had its own problems, but also qualified as a smartphone.

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[fermion]

My razor was pretty smart with a back panel. As smart as my Palm. Blackberry world did not appear until 2010. iPhone is 2007. Blackberry was developed for secure messaging, not as a smart phone. MS has been developing a mobile OS since 1996, and did have a phone edition in 2003, but did not have a dedicated phone OS until 2010. Until then it was a pocket PC. I had a programmable pocket computer back in 1985, with a mobile printer.

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[znrt]

you still think it is about device wars? the device is totally irrelevant, they all are displaying the same crap.

1994?

[sgunhouse]

Did they actually have smartphones in 1994? Or is that 30K figure actually cell phones? I have a cell phone, what I've seen called a feature phone. No touch screen, no app store, though it does have a basic browser - you remember the type. If the 1994 number is for cell phones, then I suppose I would qualify. But I do not own a smartphone.

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[gurps_npc]

First smartphone like object came out in 1992. It could send emails, along with use a whole bunch of apps they hard coded in.

The first company (AT&T) to use the word 'smartphone' used it in 1995.

By 1999, the first phone with minimal internet came out, the Qualcom pdQ smartphone.

By that time I think there can be no argument, it was a real smartphone.

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[Kernel Kurtz]

Did they actually have smartphones in 1994? Or is that 30K figure actually cell phones? I have a cell phone, what I've seen called a feature phone. No touch screen, no app store, though it does have a basic browser - you remember the type. If the 1994 number is for cell phones, then I suppose I would qualify. But I do not own a smartphone.

I got my first cell phone around 1995, a Nokia 101. It was smart enough to make and receive phone calls, and that is all

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[dfghjk]

Touch screen and App Store are not required for a smartphone. Smartphones support installable applications whereas feature phones do not.

Yes, in 1994 there was a phone that supported installable 3rd party applications.

Half the world under constant surveillance

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

by a handful of giant American big data companies. Scary shit...

How many own one because they’re forced to?

[xack]

With most online services and many banks requiring verification by phone how many bought a phone just so they can participate online? With Windows 11 requiring Microsoft accounts you can expect that computer companies will just bundle a phone in with their laptops.

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[pauljlucas]

Verification by phone is done by text messages. A dumb phone can do text messages.

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[iggymanz]

You can walk to your bank or ATM and do business, same now as decades ago. People can choose to use phone.. or PC

I own one but I don't use it

[Misagon]

I think the current state of smartphones is awful, in so many ways.

Lack of OS updates, short battery life, sub-par ergonomics, spyware, malware in app-stores, vendor lock-in, lack of honesty in advertising, attention-grabbing OS and apps, etc. etc.
While convenient for its features, I think that the way they have been designed and implemented are at risk of tipping over towards doing more harm than good.

The worst thing though, I think, is that it in some "developed", countries it has in practice become compu

Re:

[bn-7bc]

Lack of os updates, hmm you must either have an android phone or a rather old iphone, I'm not judging here, circumstances wary, it might not be feasible for you to change phone when the manufacturer decides your phone is eol, or in the case of iphone, you might find the price excessive (at some level we agree). When it comes to batteries we agree, but workarounds are rather easy, either carry a charger an blug in 1-2/day, if this is not possible get a powerbank. I know non of them are ideal, but you can onl

Don't use them

[Sanat]

I find these machines a mighty short leash if you are not careful...

Re:

[iggymanz]

as opposed to Luddites like you that have the very short leash of their own mind

Re:

[Sanat]

Judge not, less you be judged...

And yet

[quonset]

People continue to grow more stupid.

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[DontBeAMoran]

That's because 99.9999% of the population uses technology for entertainment only, never for learning.

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[iggymanz]

false statement, even before pandemic schools using computers, internet with sites & email, TV. Funny even in early 1970s when I was a kid they had multi-district wide TV system for sharing a presentation. Even an overhead projector is tech.

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[iggymanz]

OH! and how can we ever forget the various types of duplicating machines, wonderful smelly tech. PA systems and synchronized classroom clocks and bells, all tech. Stages with sound and light.

Germ laden Smartphones used on the Toilet

[Canberra1]

Smartphones are germ laden carriers of disease. Yes, people use them on the can, in the car, spreading dangerous pathogens everywhere, even the gold and diamond encrusted ones. Yuck and good riddance to the pox of humanity. Did I mention not everyone washes afterwards - their mind is on the call. Smartphones disturb sleep patterns, cause divorces, and enable efficient illegal drug transactions. Some believe they cause stupidity and mental shallowness and a regression to child level reasoning.

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[iggymanz]

you sound like a hypochondriac living in fear with stunted immune system development because your phobias precluded you from living as a normal human.

sw updates

[bn-7bc]

ok that's mildly interesting, but if you ask me the more interesting statistic would be How many % of the worlds population now owns a smartphone which will receive sw updates at all, let alone more than 1 year from now? I know worrying about updates might seam like a first world problem, but given that quite a few of the individuals in question might have the smartphone in question as there only communication device, and hence probably uses it for banking and/or other sensitive data, doing so on an out of

And the other half...

[LordHighExecutioner]

...is just smart.