By 
After many years of being completely happy with featured phones, the smartphone industry has taken a huge leap the past years. Such devices are becoming an essential part of our everyday lives, and according to a recent study conducted by pewinternet.org, smartphones now rest happily in 53% of Anerica’s adult cellphone owners.
Out of all surveyed Americans, 49% claimed to own a smartphone and 45% said they have a good ol’ feature phone. The 53% number is concluded after taking those who don’t own a cellphone at all out of the equation, which amounts to 6%. I must say, I do not know a single person that does not own a cellphone. But surely, they are out there.
The study also divides the smartphone increase by demographic groups and income, as well as education. All of this in comparison with an equal study conducted from April to May of 2011. Let’s take a look at them.
As expected, most smartphone adopters are young (between 18 and 24) and have some college education. There are some odd results, though. Apparently, people with less than a $30,000 income have been adopting smartphones more, as well as people that live in rural areas.
This is probably due to the fact that smartphones have been becoming much more accessible in the past year or two. And most of the more successful, wealthy, urban users probably adopted the technology before. This can be seen when we see the total percentages, below.
Take a look at the tables and see where you fall. And remember, there is still a large percentage of the population that needs to be introduced to the awesome world of smartphones. Let’s go and make sure they go with Android!
[Source: pewinternet Via: gigaom]
I use to be one the only 22 year old 2 yrs ago with out a phone ever in my life in fact I hated phones with a passion and couldn’t stand them . That all changed when I discovered Android. True story
It all depends on your surroundings. If you live in a city you tend to not be at home longer, and students have less access to free phones.
Back in 2002 while a university student in Boston I finally caved and got a cellphone out of necessity. The last of my friends with a landline canceled it, payphones were vanishing in a hurry, and most students get their mobile phones in their home state with their folks (implying a long-distance call for landlines). Also, many of the building intercom/buzzer systems that link to phones didn’t support non-local numbers.
So the choice really became cellphone or no-phone.
We all know the advantages of smart phones in our daily activities, this is why many people are buying this devices.
If you where a really android fanboy the question will be How many of this prospects will purchase non Android smart phones? . A little
Why? because this people will buy cheap phones and those does not exist – a lot -outside Android.
“Over half of all US cellphone owners now have a smartphone”
Well no sh#t! If you want even a remotely decent phone these days you are forced to get a smartphone. The selection for regular phones or feature phones is dwindling away, practically non-existent.
I wonder why? To force everyone to get a smartphone with a required data plan$$$!!!!!!
That’s terribly true. My wife is still on a family plan with her parents (I’ve offered to put her on my plan, but she wants to save our money), but her parents won’t pay for a data plan. She’s been checking into Verizon’s stock of dumbphones, and she can’t even find anything equivalent to her over 2 year old enV3 – if she wants a keyboard, best camera she can get is a 2MP; otherwise she gets a 3.2MP (same as the enV), but has to give up the keyboard. The selection out there is horrible – they obviously want to force everyone into a smartphone, ie a data plan.
Cameras on the feature/dumb phones were always gimicky. You can get a 14MP compact camera for ~$80 these days. I gave that to my fiance, which she leaves in her purse.
She now has a smartphone and uses it less, but its an option. Purses have their benefits :)
If she likes her enV3 why switch? The only basic VZW qwerty-slider options right now are the “Samsung Intensity™ II” and “LG Cosmos™ 2”. If you’re near a city I’d suggest the Virigin Mobile “LG Rumor 2”. My fiance loves that phone. She almost switched back actually, because she hates her Motorola Triumph.
Part of it is that the cheaper carriers like boostmobile, stright talk, virgin mobile are getting smartphones now as well and another part is that yeah they are slowly doing away with the featurephones since they are trying to push people into those expensive dataplans and will overcharge those that go over their limit. Its all about the money baby. Dang song just popped into my head.
I am still using razor flip up phone.
The majority of people without cellphones are probably disabled and are not capable of using a phone. Everyone have phones these days. The only people I know without cellphones are very young children.