As our first Chart of the Day this week shows, it’s now 91% of internet users aged 16-64 who own a smartphone – a number which has risen by around 10 percentage points compared to the same time a year ago.
Nevertheless, there are still important regional variations to note here. While most of the global leaders for smartphone adoption are found in APAC (with figures topping the 95% mark in places like Hong Kong, Singapore and China), they still lag slightly behind among the older online populations of North America (82%) and Europe (86%) – both of these being regions where online adults still remain much more wedded to their PCs and laptops.
In fact, age remains a key determiner over the likelihood of having a smartphone; while over 9 in 10 have one among the 16-44 age groups, that drops to about 8 in 10 for 45-54s and then to just over 7 in 10 for 55-64s.
Even so, that smartphones are now so ubiquitous among pretty much every region and demographic group is arguably the most important story here.
