Smartphones Account for Half of all Mobile Phones, Dominate New Phone Purchases in the US
Almost half (49.7%) of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones, as of February 2012. According to Nielsen, this marks an increase of 38 percent over last year; in February 2011, only 36 percent of mobile subscribers owned smartphones.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes the loop on a projection Nielsen itself helped frame: its November 2010 snapshot put smartphones at just 28% of U.S. cellphones, so the climb to 49.7% by February 2012 means the installed base nearly doubled in under eighteen months. It also lands almost exactly where Horace Dediu's July 2011 analysis of switching rates pointed, which argued 50% penetration would arrive around August 2012.
The composition matters as much as the level. A year earlier, in February 2011, Nielsen had Android, BlackBerry and iOS dead even in U.S. share — a three-way race that a wave of first-time smartphone buyers was about to break. And with Nielsen already measuring average per-subscriber smartphone data usage up 89% in mid-2011, each point of penetration carries disproportionate weight for network load and carrier pricing.
First-order effects
- The remaining feature-phone base shrinks below half of U.S. subscribers for the first time, squeezing manufacturers whose lineups still skew toward non-smart devices and forcing retailers' shelf space toward smartphones.
- App developers and mobile advertisers gain an addressable base approaching every other U.S. subscriber, making smartphone-first design the default rather than the premium option.
Second-order effects
- Carriers face accelerating data demand on top of the 89% usage growth Nielsen measured in 2011, strengthening the case for tiered data pricing and faster capacity buildout.
- The platform race breaks open: with RIM tied with Android and Apple as recently as early 2011, the influx of first-time buyers deciding between ecosystems directly determines whether that parity survives.
Third-order effects
- If purchases keep tilting toward smartphones, the U.S. market crosses from 'early adopters plus converts' to a smartphone-default population, reshaping how media companies, retailers and advertisers allocate spend away from desktop and feature-phone channels.
- Measurement firms like Nielsen shift their franchise accordingly — from counting device types to monetizing insight into what owners do on those devices, the pattern visible across its tablet-content and streaming research.
The trend: U.S. mobile is crossing over from a feature-phone majority to a smartphone-default market, with the pace set by first-time buyer switching rates rather than upgrades.