AppleInsider Staff
A study released by research firm Strategy Analytics on Wednesday found that the number of smartphones being used worldwide surpassed one billion units for the first time in history over the third quarter of 2012, some 16 years after the format was introduced in 1996.
Analysts at the firm view the world's first modern smartphone as being the Nokia Communicator, a brick-clamshell hybrid device targeted mainly at business users, which kept the Finnish telecom company at the head of the pack until Apple released the iPhone in 2007.
“The iPhone revolutionized smartphone design and it catalyzed industry growth," said Strategy Analytics Senior Analyst Scott Bicheno. "By the third quarter of 2011, we estimate there were 708 million smartphones in use worldwide. After a further year of soaring demand, the number of smartphones in use worldwide reached 1.038 billion units during the third quarter of 2012.â€
The study's findings are consistent with a statement made by Google's Eric Schmidt during an interview last week, though the executive went further and said Android alone is on pace to see one billion users within the next year.
While Strategy Analytics fails to breakdown the distribution of users by operating system, the sheer rate at which smartphones are being adopted is staggering.
The firm's executive director, Neil Mawston, estimates that 1 in 7 of the world's population owned a smartphone in the third quarter of 2012, and notes market penetration is still low.
“Most of the world does not yet own a smartphone and there remains huge scope for future growth, particularly in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa," Mawston said. "The first billion smartphones in use worldwide took 16 years to reach, but we forecast the next billion to be achieved in less than three years, by 2015.â€
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11 Comments
So let med get this right. I just saw the news that the number of global mobile subscriptions just passed six billion. And still the naysayers are absolutely claiming that Apples markets are "saturated"? There is still massive potential for growth on the table in the smartphone (and table) segment but for some reason Apple is the only one who is not even going to be able to grow in absolute numbers, despite it still being relatively small in China and basically non-existant in India? And also, still being on only half the operators globally compared to Android. Yep. Sure.
smartphones were invented in 2007 we need another name for pre 2007 phones.
The entire population of the world is 7 billion and total mobile subscriptions amount to 6 billion, 1 billion of which are smartphones.
How many underaged kids are using mobile phones?
[quote name="AppleInsider"]While Strategy Analytics fails to breakdown the distribution of users by operating system, the sheer rate at which smartphones are being adopted is staggering.[/quote] Apple has sold around 300 million iPhones. Google said they had sold/shipped 400 million Android devices. There are about 100 million iPads out there and if that represents 70%, then there are about 40 million Android tablets so 360 million Android phones. RIM has 80 million subscribers. That's 740 million leaving 260 million for whatever else is called a smartphone. We know it can't be Windows Phones as they only sold about 15m so far. The rest is probably made up from some Nokia junk that will soon be replaced with an Android or iOS device.
Don't forget that Samsung sells smartphones with almost all the different smartphone systems including bada, don't forget palm and webos devices either.