Data Monday: Smartphones vs. Feature Phones

by March 29, 2010

Smartphones make up a small percentage of the World's four billion cell phones but they differ drastically in their use. How drastically? Here's a snapshot:

  • In the Asia Pacific region, smartphones have 6% market share and feature phones have 28% market share. In Western Europe & North America, smartphones have 20% market share and feature phones have 68% and 64% market share respectively. (source).
  • Smartphone ownership in the United States has grown from 15% of US consumers in October 2006 to 42% in December 2009. (source).
  • The average smartphone user generates 10 times the amount of traffic generated by the average non-smartphone user. (source).
  • iPhones, in particular, can generate as much traffic as 30 basic feature phones. (source).
  • 35% of smartphone owners browse the mobile Internet at least daily versus only 4% of featurephone owners. (source).
  • 61% of smartphone owners send or receive SMS daily versus 32% of featurephone owners. (source).
  • 30.8% of smartphone users have accessed social networks using their mobile browser compared to 6.8%of feature phone users (source).
  • 80% of smartphone users have accessed Mobile Media on their mobile device vs. 26% of non-smartphone users. (source).
  • 70% of smartphone users have accessed Email on their mobile device vs. 12% of non-smartphone users. (source).
  • 65% of smartphone users have accessed News/Info on their mobile device vs. 14% of non-smartphone users. (source).
  • 37% of smartphone users have accessed Instant Messaging on their mobile device vs. 10% of non-smartphone users. (source).
  • Data traffic for an iPhone operator is almost 14 times that of a non-iPhone operator. (source).