12 Most Smartphone Addicted Countries On Earth
#1 Japan
Smartphone users – 66 per cent of total mobile phone users
Smartphone users – 66 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 78 million
Japanese cellphones are a gadget lover’s dream: ready for Internet and e-mail, they double as credit cards, boarding passes and even body-fat calculators. In Japanese, mobile phones are called keitai denwa literally "portable telephones," and are often known simply as keitai. In recent years, some cellular phones even have the capability of being used as debit or credit cards and can be swiped through most checkout lines to buy products as varied as mascara and jet planes, as more and more companies offer catalogs for cell phones.
#2 South Korea
Smartphone users – 59 per cent of total mobile phone users
Smartphone users – 59 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 32 million
The number of Smartphone users in South Korea spiked in nearly two years time to exceed 20 million by from around 470,000, the moment when Apple Inc.’s iPhone arrived in the country, data provided by the country’s telecom regulator shows.
It’s one of the fastest – if not the fastest – take-up rates of Smartphones in the world. (Arguably) The world’s largest Smartphone manufacturer and seller Samsung is headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul.
#3 The United States
Smartphone users – 48 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 172 million
Nielsen report shows that 54.9% of U.S. mobile phone owners have a Smartphone as of Q2 2012 and a comScore estimate states that Smartphone ownership in the U.S. reached 110 million by May 2012. U.S. Smartphone buyers shunned Android during December last year, buying only 0.45m more handsets while Apple added 3.21m new iPhone users, according to new data from ComScore. In the country Android and iOs have been head to head in the race ever since the green robot stepped into the scene.
#4 Spain
Smartphone users – 30 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 18 million
Spain ranks first in a European survey on the use of Smartphones. Although Spain is leading in the percentages of Smartphone use, the activity analysis shows that UK is the European country with the highest rates of use except in one field, music reproduction.
Cheaper Smartphones are likely to be on show as device makers look to new markets in the developing world to expand their presence. Powering these handsets will be new cheaper operating systems on show from the likes of Firefox and Ubuntu.
#5 China
Smartphone users – 24 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 270 million
Android already accounts for 90 percent of new Smartphone purchases in China, a trend that is alarming the government enough that it is complaining about it. The volume of Smartphone shipments in China hit 70 million in the fourth quarter --a 112 percent year-on-year increase. Foreign firms like Samsung were the first to bring Android to China, and homegrown manufacturers like Lenovo -- set to become the top-selling Chinese Android handset maker this year -- are coming on strong. But they may all be eventually swamped by cheap commoditized handsets from more than a thousand no-name manufacturers, which TechRice's Kai Lukoff has dubbed "ChinaDroids."
By releasing Android into the wild, Google may have irrevocably tilted the playing field against China's Internet restrictions. Now the same ruthlessly efficient and low-margin companies that transformed China into the world's pre-eminent manufacturer could end up powering a Smartphone wave that drowns its censors under billions of Weibo posts.
#6 Brazil
Smartphone users – 20 per cent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 55 million
Brazil's mobile market is the sixth largest in the world, the country being home to more than one
third of all mobile users in Latin America and the Caribbean. Thanks to the rules attached to the 3G licences auctioned in December 2007, almost all of Brazil's municipalities receive mobile services.
Brazil is a traditionally feature phone-centric country when it comes to mobile, but a few factors are colliding to make Smartphones a smarter choice in 2013: carriers are starting to offer cheaper data plans, free Wi-Fi access is becoming more widely available across the country and lower end Smartphone devices are hitting the market. App stores are also become more widely populated with free or inexpensive Android-focused apps, since that appears to be the OS of choice in Brazil. And if Google Play starts using carrier billing in 2013, app sales are bound to see a significant bump.
#7 Poland
Smartphone users – 16 percent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 9 million
According to WP7.com.pl, the country that currently has the most Windows Phone users in the world is Poland, with 16.3 percent of all Smartphone users owning a Windows Phone device.
Part of the reason is that Poland residents historically love Nokia phones. The current best selling Windows Phone is the low end Nokia Lumia 610. Nokia also has the local wireless carriers to subsidize the price of the phone, and launched a big marketing campaign in that region.
A PBI (Polskie Badania Internetu, a polish research company) research indicates that many Smartphone users struggle to leave the gadgets alone, no matter what other activity they are involved in at the time. 82 percent affirmed that it is harder to part with the touch screen gadgets than with normal mobile phones. Similarly, over half of those surveyed admitted they use their Smartphones during family dinners; 43 percent acknowledged that they use them while in the bathroom and some 18 percent admitted to doing so in the cinema: 5.4 percent confessed to using them in church.
#8 Mexico
Smartphone users – 12 percent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 15 million
Mobile phones aren’t only for use on the go—and that’s the case around the world, where Smartphone owners are at least as likely to text, tweet or skim the internet while on the couch as they are to check the latest sports scores while running errands. But in Mexico, home use beats out actual mobile use by a wide margin.
A Google survey conducted by Ipsos MediaCT and TNS Infratest found that nearly 9 in 10 Smartphone owners in the country used their phones to go online from home. Three-quarters did so from work locations.
Smartphone usage in Mexico—especially usage of the mobile internet—has some unusual characteristics. Owners of second-hand Smartphones who have no credit card or cannot afford a data plan use Wi-Fi hotspots to access the internet.
#9 Philippines
Smartphone users – 12 percent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 15 million
Last year, ZDNet called Philippines as the fastest growing Smartphone market in South East Asia. The country grew 61 percent to reach almost 29 million units with customers spending about US$8.75 billion on handsets. A total of 118 million units of mobile handsets were sold in the region, bringing in almost US$13.7 billion to the region's mobile market. Feature phone sales grew 12 percent in the region as customers in the region bought an additional 10 million units compared to a year ago. GfK Asia said that Smartphone growth in the region is driven primarily by the more affordable devices priced in the range of US$100 to US$200 which is currently dominating the market. With such an unprecedented growth, we may as well see Philippines climb the global rank by the end of this year
#10 Russia
Smartphone users – 9 percent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 9 million
In a country whose best known contribution to global technology may well be the Kalashnikov rifle, a new mobile-phone company once tied to Russia's state-run defense corporation, Yota Devices, hopes it will have as deep an impact on the world's next generation of Smartphones. Russia is also one of the few countries in the world where Facebook is not the leading social network. VK.com, a Russian clone of Facebook has the chunk of the online social activity in the country. Now, we know what the Russians do with all the Smartphones in the country.
According to IDC.com, 48% of the Smartphone market in Russia belongs to Nokia, 24% to Samsung, 11% HTC, a mere 8% of the entire Russian Smartphone users use Apple devices and the rest 8% use other devices. In a report by MTS, Symbian, Android and Bada Smartphones accounted for over 80% of Smartphone sales in the country.
According to Factbrowser.com, Mobile phone ownership is up to 54% in Indonesia, In Indonesia mobile phone is the most popular means of accessing the Internet, being cited by 43% of the population as the single, main device for Internet access and 87% of Indonesian tweets come from mobile devices. This goes to show how many people in the fourth largest populous country in the world, uses a Smartphone. While BlackBerry remained the number one Smartphone brand in the country in Q2 2012, Android has overtaken BlackBerry as the most popular operating systems (OS) in the country with a market share of 52%, according to IDC. IDC observes that international Smartphone makers utilizing the Android OS such as Samsung, HTC and Sony have all made inroads into the Indonesian market. In terms of overall mobile phone shipments, results from IDC's Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that the Indonesian mobile phone market grew 10% quarter-on-quarter and 25% year-on-year.
#12 India
Smartphone Users – 4 percent of total mobile phone users
Total number of Smartphone Users – 44 million
India is the world’s 5th largest Smartphone user base with 44million Smartphone users. The country is so affectionate to the device that it has even sent one to space. Consumers in India have historically avoided mobile internet. The reason for this was the slow speed of the connections and an overall poor experience on feature phones but that changed with the introduction of 3G. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group has predicted there could be as many as 237 million mobile internet users in India by 2015; this not only implies exciting times for telecom companies but also presents a unique opportunity for businesses that are ready to deliver rich mobile content, games, and useful ‘apps’ to consumers and businesses hungry for great experiences on their new Smartphones.
