We have fresh smartphone penetration rate data across major countries! I've meant to do this for a while but its been busy, but still, as these are new numbers on very rare info, I want to share it with all.

Mary Meeker we all know, the goddess of all internet stats, who often gives very good mobile related numbers too. She has in her latest numbers included a table of the 30 biggest countries by their smartphone population in use (see Slide number 7). So, these are the 30 countries who had at least 6 million or more smartphones in use by Q4 of 2012, ie at the end of the year. I should immediately point out, that several of the traditional smartphone leaders in terms of penetration rate are countries whose population is so small, they can't fit onto this table, ie Finland, Norway, Denmark (each with a population of 5 million), Singapore, Ireland, New Zealand (each with a population of 4 million). And the UAE with 8 million, is probably very near the 31st country on her list of Top 30, as the UAE has recently been reported with about 75% smartphone penetration, being right there at the cut-off point of 6 million smartphones in use... But lets ignore the 'small countries' and look at the countries whose national population is typically over 10 million (or near it, Hong Kong at 7 million, Sweden at 8 million). Which countries currently have the largest populations of smartphones in use?



I have taken Mary's data and added the relevant country population data (she published hers with the interesting - but misleading - statistic of "smartphones as percent of all mobile subscribers". That may seem 'logical' until you notice that Canada has under 100% mobile penetration while Hong Kong has over 200% penetration rate in mobile subscriptions. That measure allows for hideously misleading interpretations. So by her measure, Canada and Hong Kong appear almost equal in their 'smartphone migration' rate, whereas if we compare 'per capita' to the human population alive in the country, Hong Kong has almost exactly twice as high reach of smartphones in use per capita, as has Canada. So I am using of course the smartphone per capita statistic as the measure for rankings in this table:

Smartphone Penetrations in countries that have over 6 million smartphones in use:

COUNTRY . . . POPULATION . . . SMARTPHONES . . . SMARTPHONES PER CAPITA

Hong Kong . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85%

(Note: Singapore and Macau track very close to Hong Kong)

Sweden . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85%

(Note: Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland track very close to Sweden)

Australia . . . . . 22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72%

(Note: New Zealand tracks very close to Australia)

South Korea . . 48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66%

Japan . . . . . . . 126 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62%

UK. . . . . . . . . . . 62 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56%

(Note: Ireland tracks very close to UK)

Netherlands . . . 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54%

(Note: Switzerland and Austria usually track hear Netherlands)

USA . . . . . . . . 320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54%

Saudi Arabia . . 28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53%

(Note: UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar track usually well ahead of Saudi Arabia)

Canada . . . . . . 34 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44%

France . . . . . . . 63 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41%

Malaysia . . . . . 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41%

Spain . . . . . . . . 46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39%

Italy . . . . . . . . . 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31%

Taiwan . . . . . . . 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%

Germany . . . . . . 82 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%

Brazil . . . . . . . . 201 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27%

Argentina . . . . . . 42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26%

Poland . . . . . . . . 38 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23%

South Africa. . . . 52 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21%

Thailand . . . . . . . 71 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20%

China . . . . . . . 1,482 . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18%

Turkey . . . . . . . . 75 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17%

Philippines . . . . . 96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16%

Russia . . . . . . . . 147 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15%

Mexico . . . . . . . 117 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13%

Indonesia . . . . . 247 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11%

Egypt . . . . . . . . . 84 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%

India . . . . . . . 1,261 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3%

Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis from Mary Meeker & Informa data, and UN population statistics, April 2013

This data may be freely shared

So when we add the 'usual suspect' smaller countries like Singapore, Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland etc, we get 22 countries already where smartphone penetration rate is past 50% per capita. And by now, April of 2013, we have just about 10 countries where there is a smartphone for three quarters of the population - Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Australia and New Zealand. Previously (but not verified by these Mary Meeker numbers) we also heard that the UAE had passed 75% smartphone penetration by early 2012, so we should also have Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar with more than 75% smarpthone penetration, so very likely the count is 14 (mostly small, and obviously very affluent) countries.

WORLD MARKET FOR SMARTPHONES 2013

Last year the world saw 695 million smartphones sold (almost twice the number of all types of PCs, and about four out of every ten mobile phones sold overall). This year we will see about 1 Billion new smartphones sold. How are those split regionally? I used the Mary Meeker numbers to determine year 2012 installed base regionally - her numbers accounted for 88% of all smartphones in use. I then used a population-adjusted model to fill in the missing national penetrations, by region. And then used a growth estimator for the different regions, based on how high their current installed base and migration rate is, obviously in the West we do not see heavy growth rates anymore in smartphones, the growth is mild, while in the Emerging World the growth rates are huge. So with that, I got this mix of the regional split of the global smartphone market for 2013. This is new sales of smartphones this year, 2013, split by region:







Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis April 2013, projected from Mary Meeker Q4 2012 data and other smartphone market sources including TomiAhonen Phone Book 2012

This picture may be freely shared

Note, as the market is expected to be very near exactly 1 Billion new smartphones sold this year, you can take those numbers and convert multiply the percentages by 10 to get the number sold. So for China, 27% means 270 million smartphones this year as the Chinese market size, and for North America 13% means 130 million smartphones sold etc. Yes, China alone this year will see approximately twice as many new smartphones sold as in all of North America. And Asia accounts for almost exactly half of all new smartphones sold this year, led by China, but including the rich parts of Asia like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong etc, and then the Emerging World parts of the 'Rest of Asia' ie India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines etc etc etc. Half of all smartphones sold this year will go to Asia.

FOR MATH GEEKS

And for those who want to do their own math at home, haha.. Here are the multipliers you can get rough estimates of quarterly market sizes, if you know the full year sales level (at 1 Billion for this year):

Q1 = 21% = 210 million in 2013

Q2 = 22% = 220 million in 2013

Q3 = 25% = 250 million in 2013

Q4 = 32% = 320 million in 2013

TOTAL = 100% = 1 Billion smartphones in 2013



(This are based on 2012 numbers, expecting the ratio to be very similar this year, with the exception of if there is a major economic collapse that suddenly kills sales).



So with those numbers, you can for example see, that the US market for smartphones in Q1 was about (using the formula: 210 million x 13% = 27.3) so 27.3 million actual units of smartphones sold. So as market data, we know from Nokia Q1 results this past week, that Nokia sold 400,000 units of smartphones in North America in Q1, so Nokia's smartphone market share would be 1.4% in North America right now, including all Windows Phone Lumia and the random last Symbian unit, combined. As a sanity check, when we examine Kantar February 2013 numbers from their market data analysis of the US market, they suggest Nokia Symbian and Windows Phone should have 4.2% of the US smartphone market, that would suggest 33% of the US market for Windows Phone was held by Nokia in Q1, and 67% went to the rivals on Windows Phone platform like HTC and Samsung. So the other stronger brands in the US market would have sold approximately 800,000 Windows Phone handsets, which again would be consistent with the level of sales that is non-Nokia on a global level, with Windows Phone (as we heard, those manufacturers shrunk or ended their marketing of Windows Phone for non-US markets in Q4). When we look at the MKM intent to buy survey also for the US right now, they had 0.7% of US consumers willing to buy a Nokia Lumia smartphone. If half of US phones sold roughly speaking now are smarpthones, that is again consistent with 1.4% smartphone market share.

As a second sanity check, lets take another major market and another brand. Lets look at China and Lenovo. The math suggests Chinese market to be about (Formula: 270 million x 21% in Q1 = 56.7) so 56.7 million units right now. Lenovo said in Q4 that almost all of their sales were still from China as they were just entering Russia, India, etc. So if we look at Lenovo's Q4 sales at 9.4 million, it suggests a 16.5% market share if that level continued to now. Strategy Analytics reported that for the full year sales, Lenovo's China market share was 13%. Again, reasonably close, allowing for Lenovo's rapid growth, its annual average (13%) would have to be by necessity lower than its current level (16%). Again the sanity check is very strong, that these numbers are good estimates.So there you have it, national penetration rates for 30 countries reported in absolute numbers and as penetration rate per capita. I've added a dozen more smaller countries via their proxies, to indicate where we might find Norway or Macau or Kuwait etc. And based on those numbers, I've calculated the market size estimators updated for 2013, for the regional/continental market sizes for smartphone sales this year. All data on this blog obviously free to use, and free to share and feel free to create better tables, graphics etc from the above data.For those who want much more in handset data, please see my TomiAhonen Phone Book 2012 . And for those who may need to plan for the future, you may want to see the projections on over 100 data points into the next few years, by the most accurate forecaster in the mobile industry. See my TomiAhonen Mobile Forecast 2012-2015 if that might be of use.