In a new survey, the PEW Research Center released the latest data on technical device ownership in the USA. The survey was taken in the March / April and June / July 2015 time frame and involved around two thousand adults (age 18 and older) each. The first survey asked for all devices, while the second survey asked for smartphone ownership only.
The PEW Research Center is an independent research organization that has looked at technical device ownership since as early as 2004. The following chart shows how the various devices are faring in consumer adoption.
Source: PEW Research Center
As expected, cell phone ownership is at an all time high, with 92% of all adults in the US owning one. This number includes Smartphones which are owned by 68% of all adults. This means that about one quarter of the US adults can still upgrade to a smartphone, which would equate to a market for almost 50 million smartphones.
As a side result, the survey found that ownership in almost all other device categories is dropping. These drops may be small or even within the margin of error, which is about 3% for all adults. However, this margin of error varies somewhat depending on age group, sex, education level, income range and race and can be as high as +- 8.4% but is typically in the 4% to 6% range.
The only device category that still shows a penetration increase is the tablet, which reached a penetration of 45% in adults. It has to be recognized that the penetration increase is slowing down considerably, which corresponds with declining sales, as the first time device and replacement tablet sales are lower than first time device sales in previous years.
It is very interesting to see how all other categories remain basically flat. This includes desktop / laptop computers, game consoles, and MP3 players. None of these devices is having the great sales impact that they had some years ago. The electronic book reader is actually dropping off more significantly with an ownership percentage of 19% versus around 30% a little over a year ago. That means bad times for the makers of electrophoretic displays, for sure. It seems that the question of whether a dedicated device like the electronic book reader can compete with a multitask device like the tablet has been answered in favor of the multi tasker.
Analyst Comment
While these data are describing the device adoption in the USA only, the results pretty much confirm the overall sales trends around the globe. While the specific numbers maybe significantly different in other parts of the world, I would expect that the overall trends are pretty much the same all over the globe.
We have succeeded in creating the smartphone and this trumps all other developments in technology for now and as I suspect for many years to come. If there is anything in the technical world that can take the place of the smartphone in the near future, please let me know. Until then all big CE companies have to pay attention to the smartphone and its derivatives including the tablet and Phablet. Consumers love their communication devices and, it seems, this device makes our world tick. I am just amazed how the US founding fathers could develop the constitution without any messaging device. If they had had Twitter back then, the constitution might have been much shorter! (NH)
