The average time spent daily on a phone, not counting talking on the phone, has increased in recent years, reaching a total of * hours and ** minutes as of April 2022. This figure was expected to reach around * hours and ** minutes by 2024.

According to a survey conducted in February 2021, nearly **** of the respondents stated that on average they spent **** to *** hours on their phone on a daily basis, not including work-related smartphone use. A further ** percent of respondents said that they spent ***** to **** hours on average on their phone daily. Just **** percent of the surveyed users said they spent less than ******r a day on their smartphone. As of the end of 2020, ** percent of respondents reported not limiting their use of mobile apps or services at all. Mobile social in the United States Between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, users in the United States spent more than ** minutes daily on social media apps. Traditional social media products as Facebook and Instagram still manage to engage larger online audiences, however mobile-first social video platform TikTok won the favor of the younger segments of the country’s digital population. As video becomes the industry-favorite format for social media, the user base of platforms like Snapchat and TikTok is expected to keep growing, especially among Gen Z users in the country. Ads in apps: U.S. users’ opinion of in-app advertising Despite the growing popularity of mobile services on subscription, adding ads to the mobile app experience remains the most common monetization method among U.S. publishers. As of September 2021, more than ***** users in ** agreed that having mobile apps with ads was preferable to paying for downloads, while only ***** percent disagreed. Approximately ** percent of users were inclined to visit the brand’s website after seeing relevant in-app advertising, and ** percent reported purchasing the advertised product.

In 2023, users in the United Kingdom spent an average of three hours and 50 minutes per day using their mobile devices. This represents a decrease from the over four hours that users in the country spent on their smartphones during 2021 and 2022. Between 2019 and the end of 2022, daily time spent on mobile in the UK experienced a slow but constant increase, while in 2023 the trend normalized to the levels it had before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023, global users spent around *** hours daily accessing the internet via mobile, as well as **** hours on average using the internet via laptop or PC devices. Between 2015 and 2023, the number of hours spent accessing the internet via PC among digital users worldwide ********* when compared to the time spent doing so on mobiles and smartphones.

According to a 2019 SellCell survey, **** percent of children spend between *** and *** hours using their cell phone every day. For **** percent, the amount of time spent on the phone exceeds * hours a day.

In 2023, users in Indonesia spent on average **** hours a day on their mobile phones, marking an increase from approximately *** hours in 2020. Mobile users in Thailand and India had the second and third highest daily screen times among the selected countries, averaging **** and **** hours, respectively. With the exception of Indonesia and South Korea, all the surveyed APAC countries saw an increase in mobile screen times over the previous year.

During the third quarter of 2024, internet users in Ghana spent around *** hours using the internet on their mobile phones per day. Users in the Philippines followed, with roughly **** hours and ** minutes of daily online activities on mobile, while Brazil ranked third. In the examined period, Japan registered the lowest number of daily hours spent online on mobile phones among the examined regions, with users in the country spending an average of *** hour and ** minutes per day using the internet.

During the third quarter of 2024, internet users worldwide spent **** percent of their time browsing the internet via mobile phones. Between the third quarter of 2013 and the end of 2024, internet usage via mobile has experienced a growth trend.

In 2022, the average data used per smartphone per month worldwide amounted to ** gigabytes (GB). The source forecasts that this will increase almost four times reaching ** GB per smartphone per month globally in 2028.

In the first quarter of 2025, Chinese mobile users spent an average of **** hours daily on apps, higher than the average pre-pandemic level. Apart from instant messengers, short video and online video apps were other popular app categories, accounting for over a ***** of the total app usage time.

In 2023, users in Indonesia spent an average of **** hours per day using their mobile devices. This represents an increase from the **** hours that users in the country spent on their smartphones in 2020.

As of 2018, ** percent of ** to 18-year-old Swedish kids spent *** or more hours daily on average using mobile devices. The corresponding figures in the age groups of 9 to 12 years and 13 to 16 years amounted to *** percent and ** percent respectively.

 According to this survey conducted in February 2017, the younger the respondents were, the more time they spent on their mobile phone. Among French people aged 15 to 17, ** percent admitted using their mobile phone over **** hours a day, while those surveyed aged 35 to 49 were ** percent to spend less than an hour on their phones. Indeed, as of 2019, responding young adults from 18 to 24 years old spend in average **** hours on digital devices daily (smartphone, tablet or computer).

Activities carried out on mobile devices  

 What do French people use their mobile devices for? Firstly, it appears that almost ** percent of the time spend on mobile devices was consecrated to the use of mobile apps. Regarding the activities carried out on mobile devices, smartphones were the first device mentioned for playing video games among respondents in the Statista Global Consumer Survey from early 2019. Moreover, the share of French people using a mobile phone for purchasing online has increased from ** percent in 2013 to almost ** percent in 2018.

Screen time and health issues  

Although the younger generations are the ones spending the most time on digital devices, they appeared also the most conscious of the health issues related to screens. In 2019, the 18-34-year-olds were those who stated the most believing that it would be beneficial to their health and wellbeing to reduce their screen time.

The population share with mobile internet access in North America was forecast to increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 2.9 percentage points. This overall increase does not happen continuously, notably not in 2028 and 2029. The mobile internet penetration is estimated to amount to 84.21 percent in 2029. Notably, the population share with mobile internet access of was continuously increasing over the past years.The penetration rate refers to the share of the total population having access to the internet via a mobile broadband connection.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).Find more key insights for the population share with mobile internet access in countries like Caribbean and Europe.

In 2021, the share of individuals who accessed the internet daily via their smartphones in Norway was of 86 percent. Between 2010 and 2021, the number of mobile internet users in the country increased constantly, from 13 percent in 2010 to surpassing 80 percent between 2017 and 2018.

North America registered the highest mobile data consumption per connection in 2023, with the average connection consuming ** gigabytes per month. This figure is set to triple by 2030, driven by the adoption of data intensive activities such as 4K streaming.

The global number of smartphone users in was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 1.8 billion users (+42.62 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the smartphone user base is estimated to reach 6.1 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of smartphone users of was continuously increasing over the past years.Smartphone users here are limited to internet users of any age using a smartphone. The shown figures have been derived from survey data that has been processed to estimate missing demographics.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).Find more key insights for the number of smartphone users in countries like Australia & Oceania and Asia.

In 2021, the number of mobile users worldwide stood at 7.1 billion, with forecasts suggesting this is likely to rise to 7.26 billion by 2022. In 2025, the number of mobile users worldwide is projected to reach 7.49 billion.

According to a survey conducted among teens and preteens in the United States, approximately ** percent of teens and preteens used their smartphones between ***** and **** hours daily as of November 2022. Around ** percent of respondents reported using their mobile devices between **** and **** hours daily, while **** percent reported engaging with their devices for more than ** hours per day.

In 2021, the number of mobile devices operating worldwide stood at almost 15 billion, up from just over 14 billion in the previous year. The number of mobile devices is expected to reach 18.22 billion by 2025, an increase of 4.2 billion devices compared to 2020 levels.

Moving forward with 5G

As the number of devices grows, so does our dependence on them to fulfill daily functions and activities. The use cases for mobile devices increasingly demand faster connection speeds and lower latency. The 5G network will be critical to fulfilling those demands, operating at significantly faster rates than 4G. In North America, for example, it is expected that there will be 218 million 5G connections, up from just ten million in 2020. This means around 48 percent of all mobile connections in North America. Globally, this figure should reach 20.1 percent by 2025.

6G: looking beyond 5G

While 5G has entered commercialization and is already creating new opportunities, researchers and engineers are already experimenting with 6G. Not only will the number of mobile devices continue to grow but cellular internet-of-things (IoT) devices are set to permeate more industrial sectors in the coming years, meaning a solution will eventually be required for network congestion and data transfer speeds.

6G ought to be capable of solving those problems before they arise, potentially enabling a network connection density ten times greater than that of 5G, and peak data rates up to fifty times faster than the rate of 5G. The Federal Communications Commission in the United States has opened spectrum for experimentation, and China have already launched what is described as a 6G satellite, so that actual potential of 6G should be revealed over the coming decade.