It probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but it’s always nice to see it plotted on a graph: Smartphones might just be the fastest-spreading technology in human history. The only technologies that come close is the adoption of television between 1950 and 1953, and the recent emergence (and rapid growth) of the tablet market.

While these graphs, compiled by Michael Degusta for Technology Review, are entirely US-centric, they are representative of other Western world countries. The graphs clearly show that “last mile” technologies, such as landline telephone and electricity, take up to 100 years to reach market saturation — while wireless technologies, such as radio, television, and mobile (feature/dumb) phones can go from 0% to 75% market penetration in just 20 years.

Unfortunately Degusta doesn’t have complete data for 2011 or 2012 yet, but between 2007 and 2010 (spurred on by the release of the first iPhone) smartphones registered a gargantuan surge from 5% to 40% penetration. Smartphone growth is accelerating, too — in the US, more than two thirds of mobile phones sold are now of the smart variety. It is likely that smartphones will reach 75% penetration in the US in the next few years, making it the fastest-spreading technology in human history.

What about the rest of the world, though? Well, mobile phones (and now smartphones) are kind of unique in this regard. Historically, the adoption of advanced technologies is usually closely linked to a country’s GDP — but mobile phones have completely bucked that trend. In 2001, there was just one billion mobile phone subscribers — most of them in developed countries. Today there are six billion subscribers, and 73% of those (4.4 billion!) are in developing countries that account for just 20% of the world’s total GDP. In short, in just 10 years, mobile phones have almost reached saturation point in countries where people earn just a few dollars per day (and we have cheap ARM CPUs to thank for that!) Smartphones, with their larger screens and processors, are obviously more expensive than feature phones at the moment, but it’s only a matter of time until they’re cheap enough for worldwide adoption. In the first quarter of 2012, worldwide, 36% of all mobile phone shipments were smartphones, compared to 25% the year before.

While tablets have seen very strong adoption in the US since the release of the iPad in 2010, the jury is still out on whether worldwide demand will be anywhere near as ubiquitous as mobile phones. In Western countries, we can afford a laptop, smartphone, and tablet — in developing countries, at least for the time being, buying anything other than a smartphone would probably be a little foolhardy.

Of course, underpinning the growth of mobile phones are massive wireless networks. According to the ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, some 90% of the world’s seven billion population is now covered by a 2G GSM wireless network, the vast majority of which also provide internet access via EDGE and GPRS. Furthermore, 45% of the world’s population (3 billion) are covered by a 3G cellular network. In a day and age where we’re still struggling to roll out high-speed internet via cable or DSL, we should be rather proud of ubiquity and performance of our worldwide wireless networks.

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