There are a whopping 7.2 billion smartphones in the world and the market is continuing to grow. Indeed, data suggests that the overall industry grew by 7.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2024.
With so many people now able to access these handheld devices, you may be intrigued to know what the most common uses are. Statistics show that smartphone users around the world all do similar things with them.
Entertainment
You may be surprised to know that more people use smartphones for entertainment than they do for phone calls. According to statistics, voice call minutes are declining by around nine per cent per year, highlighting how people are less interested in talking on their devices than they were in the early days of mobile technology.
Four in ten people use smartphones for gaming, with the online casino industry being a huge driver for mobile sales. Paddy Power online casino thrived throughout the 2010s as the smartphone market boomed, as it ensured that all its games were adapted to the portable screen. Now, titles like Age of the Gods Cash Collect and Jackpot Hunter are optimised for the smaller screen and designed to play in quick bursts.
Various other forms of entertainment have risen in the smartphone era as well. The ballooning of Netflix subscriber numbers correlated with the expansion of the mobile market, with the company announcing that half of its viewer base access content from a mobile device.
Communication
Despite voice calls being on the decline in the smartphone market, communication is still up there with the most common uses of mobile devices. However, the way people keep in touch with each other has changed drastically over the years.
WhatsApp is the most used messaging app, installed on 89 per cent of iPhones and 86 per cent of Androids. Facebook Messenger is the second-most popular way to communicate, and these two apps highlight how text has overtaken voice calls.
Mobile users also communicate in other ways, such as commenting on posts across other apps. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are popular across all age groups, with the latter recently expanding its reach after its rebrand as X. It’s now installed on 62 per cent of mobile devices in the UK according to Uswitch.
Productivity
The other main use of smartphones is productivity. One key feature of the smartphone era has been the surge in useful apps that can be used for everything from measuring surfaces to tracking sleep.
The productivity app market is valued at over $9.4 billion globally, and it’s expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.2 per cent every year until 2031. Some of the top productivity apps on the market include Microsoft OneNote, Freedom, and Streaks.
Smartphones may be small, but they have countless useful and amazing functions. The main ways that people use them are the same across the board, but there are countless options to choose from within each category. Individual users have the power to modify their app selections based on their own personal preferences.