Do you own a smartphone?
If you do, you’ll probably be rather unsurprised to hear that you’re definitely not alone in owning (or using) one. In fact, a new study by Strategy Analytics released this morning has pegged the number of smartphone users now present on Earth for the third quarter of 2012, at 1.038 Billion.
For the first time in history, there are over 1 Billion users around the world who not only now own a smartphone of some type or variety, but are also using their smartphone to perform the tasks they need to complete on a daily basis.
Speaking on the company’s findings, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, Scott Bicheno, highlighted that, just a year ago, that figure reflected closer to 708 Million.
“The iPhone revolutionized smartphone design and it catalyzed industry growth. By the third quarter of 2011, we estimate there were 708 million smartphones in use worldwide. After a further year of soaring demand, the number of smartphones in use worldwide reached 1.038 billion units during the third quarter of 2012.”
Essentially, this means that the total amount of smartphone users grew by roughly 300 Million in the space of 12-months. That’s staggering. Bicheno concluded by noting the firm expects Android OS alone to surpass 1 Billion users inside the next 12-months.
The first “smart”-phone was considered to be the Nokia 9000 Communicator originally released in 1996. The last Communicator-branded smartphone handset released by Nokia was the Nokia E90 Communicator, released just before Apple debuted its iPhone, in 2007.