This statistic shows the number of smartphone users in the U.S. from 2009 to 2040. For 2022, the number of smartphone users in the United States is estimated to reach 307 million.

Smartphone users - additional information

Advances in telecommunication technology have been significant in recent years. These advances have led to a level of connectivity never seen before. The number of smartphone users in the US has risen steadily over the last several years and forecasts estimate that smartphone penetration in North America will also continue to rise steadily into the future. The United States is one of the leading countries in the world with respect to adoption of smartphone technology.

In America the most popular smartphone brands are Samsung and Apple, while the most popular smartphone operating systems / platforms with respect to market share are none other than Google Android and Apple’s own operating system, iOS. Other operating systems, such as Symbian, Blackberry OS, Bada and Windows have struggled to maintain a foothold in the market as iOS and Android clearly dominate the field.

The first official smartphones came onto the market in the early 1990s. Initially a smartphone was classified by its ability to offer features like e-mail capability, internet access, QUERTY keyboards, personal digital assistant functions and perhaps a built-in camera. As of today, smartphones have progressed even more and we typically classify smartphones as having a high definition touchscreen, various apps, navigation tools and high-speed internet on the go. More recently sales of smartphones have even exceeded that of traditional feature phones as smartphone usage has continued to rise.

The number of smartphone users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 17.4 million users (+5.61 percent). After the fifteenth consecutive increasing year, the smartphone user base is estimated to reach 327.54 million 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 Mexico and Canada.

The percentage of U.S. adults who own a smartphone has more than doubled since 2011. Only 35 percent of all U.S. adults owned a smartphone in 2011, compared to 90 percent of adults who owned a smartphone, as of May 2023. The share of U.S. adults owning a smartphone increased by 55 percentage points the highlighted period. 

Higher smartphone usage with males and higher-income groups    

As smartphone penetration overall has increased over time in the United States, this trend can be observed in the split by gender as well. The penetration rate is not equally high though for both male and female users, as the usage amongst males is around five percent higher than amongst females in the United States.

The smartphone penetration rate in the United States correlates appears closely related to with household income in the United States. In households with an annual income of more than 50 thousand U.S. dollars the smartphone penetration rate is 90 percent or higher, while on the other hand smartphone ownership in households with an annual income below this threshold is below 80 percent.

Apple leader in U.S. smartphone market    

Apple is the leading vendor in the United States smartphone market with almost 50 percent of U.S. mobile phone subscribers using an Apple device. Although Apple is the leading vendor in the United States, the Apple iOS operating system has a lower market share than its main competitor Google Android. As the Android operating system is used by the vast majority of smartphone vendors other than Apple, it combines the share of popular brands such as Samsung, LG, and Lenovo/Motorola.

The statistic shows the share of the population in the United States that uses a smartphone in the United States from 2018 to 2025. In 2025, 87.08 percent of the population in the United States is forecast to use a smartphone.

Smartphone user penetration - additional information
A smartphone can be defined as a mobile device that uses an identifiable operating system and has a more advanced technological capability than a basic mobile phone. The number of U.S mobile users who have a smartphone is set to more than triple between 2011 and 2017 to almost 80 percent of all mobile users. This means that the number of overall smartphone users is forecast to top 200 million by 2017.

The smartphone penetration rate of mobile users is similarly high in the United Kingdom, with over 80 percent expected to own a smart device by 2017. However the smartphone market is set to grow at a slower rate in China with just under half of mobile users forecast to own a smartphone in 2017. The percentage is even lower in India where 32 percent of mobile phone users are predicted to use a smartphone by 2017.

Android phones and iPhones remain the most popular choice for smartphones with the two respective Operating Systems holding of 90 percent of the market sales in the U.S. in 2013. This trend looks set to continue with two new competing smartphones on the market, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Android) and the iPhone 6 (iOS), both unveiled in 2014.

This statistic shows the smartphone penetration as share of the population in the United States from 2010 to 2021. In 2018, 69.6 percent of the U.S. population used a smartphone.

Smartphone penetration in the U.S. - additional information
Almost two-thirds of Americans are predicted to own a smartphone by 2017, more than a threefold increase since 2010. A smartphone is a mobile phone that uses an identifiable open Operating System (OS) and has more advanced computing capability and connectivity than a basic phone. The OS is supported by third party applications (commonly known as apps) written by the developer community.

The operating system must be able to support a multitasking environment and user interface that can handle multiple applications at the same time. Two of the most popular operating systems on the market are made by Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) who had a combined stake of over 90 percent of the smartphone market share worldwide at the end of 2016.

The popularity of the smartphone has risen immensely since Apple introduced its first iPhone in 2007, with 43.5 percent of all Americans forecast to own an iPhone by 2016. The first iPhone was notably different from other smartphones at the time because it used a large touchscreen for direct finger input, rather than the need for a stylus, keypad, or keyboard.

The first smartphone to use the Android OS was the HTC Dream released in 2008. Although numbers of people using this OS were low at first, it has since grown to be the most used operating system, with an estimated 107.7 million Americans projected to own an Android phone by 2016.

This statistic illustrates the share of Americans owning a smartphone in the U.S.. As of September 2024, 95 percent of 18 - 29 year old consumers do so in the U.S. This is according to exclusive results from the Consumer Insights Global survey which shows that 95 percent of 30 - 49 year old customers also fall into this category.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

The smartphone ownership in the United States is highest in urban areas, where 89 percent of adults own a smartphone. In Rural areas the ownership rate is lower with 80 percent.

In 2023, Millennials recorded the highest smartphone penetration rate in the United States, over 40 percent. Gen X and Gen Z ranked second and third, with a penetration rate of almost 89 percent and roughly 73 percent, respectively.

The average time spent daily on a phone, not counting talking on the phone, has increased in recent years, reaching a total of 4 hours and 30 minutes as of April 2022. This figure is expected to reach around 4 hours and 39 minutes by 2024.

Smartphone ownership in the United States is most common in the younger age groups. 97 percent of adults aged 18 to 49 own a smartphone, while the penetration rate of smartphones amongst adults 65 years and older is only 76 percent.

The population share with mobile internet access in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 2.7 percentage points. After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the mobile internet penetration is estimated to reach 92.51 percent and therefore a new peak 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).

The number of smartphone users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 17.4 million users (+5.61 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the smartphone user base is estimated to reach 327.54 million 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).

According to a survey conducted between 2011 and 2023, 91 percent of male adults based in the United States owned a smartphone in the last examined year. Similarly, 90 percent of female respondents in the country reported owning a smartphone device in 2023.

According to a survey conducted among teens and preteens in the United States, approximately 16 percent of teens and preteens used their smartphones between three and four hours daily as of November 2022. Around 15 percent of respondents reported using their mobile devices between four and five hours daily, while nine percent reported engaging with their devices for more than 10 hours per day.

This statistic illustrates the percentage of U.S. adults owned a smartphone from 2011 to 2021, by household income. In 2021, the survey found that 96 percent of people with a household income of 75,000 US dollars or more owned a smartphone.

According to a survey conducted in February 2021, nearly half of the respondents stated that on average they spent five to six hours on their phone on a daily basis, not including work-related smartphone use. A further 22 percent of respondents said that they spent three to four hours on average on their phone daily. Just five percent of the surveyed users said they spent less than an hour a day on their smartphone. As of the end of 2020, 18 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 37 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 three users in 10 agreed that having mobile apps with ads was preferable to paying for downloads, while only eight percent disagreed. Approximately 32 percent of users were inclined to visit the brand’s website after seeing relevant in-app advertising, and 11 percent reported purchasing the advertised product.

North America registered the highest mobile data consumption per connection in 2023, with the average connection consuming 29 gigabytes per month. This figure is set to triple by 2030, driven by the adoption of data intensive activities such as 4K streaming.

During a 2024 survey conducted in the United States, among respondents who were smartphone users over the age of 55, less than 30 percent spent one to four hours on their smartphone per week. This is in stark contrast to respondents aged between 18 and 34, the majority of which spent between 40 or more hours a week on their phones.

During a 2024 survey conducted in the United States, it was found that most respondents thought students should be allowed to use smartphones in school, but not during class. Another 26 percent of respondents had the opinion students should be allowed to have their phones in school, but not use them.

"Social media apps" and "Internet browser" are the top two answers among U.S. consumers in our survey on the subject of "Most used smartphone apps by type".Find this and more survey data on most used smartphone apps by type in our Consumer Insights tool. Filter by countless demographics, drill down to your own, hand-tailored target audience, and compare results across countries worldwide.