Tech QQ

Pew Research Center recently released their 2010 survey of cellphone usage, and it shows a clear trend.

The report is only from data collected in the US, but still shows a clear trend of increased smartphone usage.

The numbers compared between May 2010 and April 2009 shows a 15% increase in people using their phones to access the internet. A 15% increase in people recording videos on on their phones, 12% increase in using their phones for listening to music and a 9% increase in people checking emails.

Pew concludes:

Cell phone ownership has remained stable over the last year, but users are taking advantage of a much wider range of their phones' capabilities compared with a similar point in 2009. Of the eight mobile data applications we asked about in both 2009 and 2010, all showed statistically significant year-to-year growth.

Now the question is if this is indeed due to people using more of their phones capabilities, or that cellphone ownership percentage stays the same, but people are upgrading their cellphones to smartphones with more capabilities.

Looking at the sales figures for Android devices and iPhone in the US, I suspect it's more of a question of people getting their hands on better, more capable handsets.

The trend is clear though, and it will be interesting to see if this development keeps on or even picks up more momentum. I would suspect it will actually gain momentum over the next few years, as more and more people will go for a cellphone to smartphone upgrade when the time comes to swap handset.

Then there is also some demographics in this that are interesting, that shows the younger segment (aged 18 to 29) being more prolific user than those older of age in the survey. Which is often a given being that adoption of new technology is often more rapid in the younger segment. To see all the results follow the link to the original survey below.
Pew Research mobile use survey 2010

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Article about 2010 Q4 smart phone statistics here.
More articles about statistics here.