Over half of the planet's population use smartphones now

The total number of humans on Earth is widely regarded as having reached 8 billion at the end of 2022 - now, according to the GSM Assocation (GSMA), 54% of those people (or 4.3 billion) used a smartphone at the same point.

Those individuals contributed significantly to the number of people estimated to have access to mobile internet (3G, 4G or 5G) at the end of 2022: 4.6 billion, or 57% of the global population. This boost in usage, compared to 35% in 2015, was probably helped by a drop in those affected by a lack of coverage worldwide: 5%, compared to 18% about 7 years ago.

Then again, those figures are not constant across all regions: for example, 85% of all people in North America used mobile internet by the end of 2022, compared to 58% in 2015, whereas that figure grew from 20% to 44% over 7 years in South Asia.

The GSMA did not differentiate between, for example, Android and iOS devices in releasing the key findings of its latest report, however. Then again, it did conclude that not everyone with mobile connectivity has switched to a smartphone quite yet, as 600 million people, or ~8 of the population, still used feature phones at the end of 2022.

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