More than one-third of Americans now have smartphones. If you live somewhere like San Francisco or Atlanta that may seem slightly low, and that’s because 38 per cent of urban and suburban residents have them, while only 21 per cent of rural residents do. I suspect that has as much to do with 3G and mobile phone tower access as anything else.
Meanwhile, if you are black or Latino, you are more likely to have a smartphone than if you are white. 44 per cent of black and Latino respondents to the Pew study had smartphones, versus 30 per cent of whites.
If you earn less than $30,000 a year, you are just as likely to not have a mobile phone at all as to have a smartphone. That is, unless you are young. A full 39 per cent of 18-29 year olds who earn less than 30 stacks have smartphones.
That’s higher than the national average. It means young people are willing to sacrifice elsewhere to pay for a nice phone. As consumer habits settle in when people are young, you know handset manufacturers will love that.
And then there’s this great word cloud. The survey asked people how they felt about their phones. Most people really love them! Or at least consider them necessary. But see that small subset of people who replied “sucks” and “irritating” and “pain” and “annoying?”
Yeah. I’m guessing those are Symbian users.
ozoneocean
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 2:20 PMYes, I think an “iphone” has become a sort of status item. For most I really don’t think it’s about “smartphones” at all, just the “iphone”- and iphone-like devices. -Not for all by any means, but there is definitely a massive proportion of people that neither need nor know much of the capabilities of smartphones, that includes poor AND wealthy people.
I would say that it’s the majority, and it’s probably an identical situation in every country.
Franz
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 7:15 PMPeople of wealth just aren’t interested in $14,000 phones anymore, they are basically just a reshaped Nokia 5110 with a colourscreen and crappy camera, being jewel encrusted and made from gold just doesn’t cut it anymore.
I’ll have you know it was only a matter of time.
Steve
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 11:01 PMNo surprise that some of the people who love (relatively more expensive) smartphones are lower-income young people and minorities.
The iPhone is, whether you like it or not, a status symbol and is the newest sign of conspicuous consumption. I have plenty of poor, hipster friends who work minimum wage but have $80+/month iPhone plans.