How many people have smartphones worldwide?

The number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses three billion and is forecast to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years. China, India, and the United States are the countries with the highest number of smartphone users, with each country easily surpassing the 100 million user mark.

Smartphone unit sales levelling off

In the past five years, about 1.4 billion smartphones were sold worldwide annually, reflecting stagnation in the smartphone market during the last few years. The smartphone market still has high growth potential though, as the smartphone penetration rate is still lower than 70 percent in many highly populated countries, in particular China and India. The revenue of the global smartphone market continued to increase over the last few years, despite stagnating unit sales - due to a growing average selling price of smartphones.

Leading smartphone vendors

The leading smartphone vendors today are Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. Taken together the three technology companies account for about half of all smartphone shipments worldwide. All three shipped at least 200 million smartphones in 2018, with Samsung leading the way with more than 290 million smartphone unit shipments.