Understanding the Second Phone: That is Now Almost Always Also a Smartphone

As I am finishing the new TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 edition, as always when looking at the data, I am noticing patterns. Ones that catch my eye are the exceptions. Where a given trend line does not conform to the overall industry growth curves. The 'second phone' fits this pattern. It is 'bucking the trend'.

I have been reporting on second phones on this blog and in my books for ages and I have been asking for industry analysts to go measure their count. This is still a murky area for which very little data exists but we can estimate its size reasonably well if we take the total population of phones in use, and subtract the number of mobile phone owners who report having at least one active mobile phone and account. So the current numbers fresh from the TomiAhonen Almanac 2017, tell us that the world has 5.15 Billion unique mobile phone users (owners) - this is a number that increasingly is now also reported by others like Ericsson, Cisco and the GSM Association; and I did the comparison of this data point earlier this week to see how valid it is. (It is very valid).

I have also reported for years the 'total number of phones' in use number which is bigger, because obviously some of us carry two phones. That number is 5.75 Billion total handsets in use worldwide (includes smartphones and dumbphones of course). It also gives us the number of 'second phones'. And that is where the math gets interesting. That number - second phones - has stayed stubbornly flat for nearly a decade, locked at 600 million. Not up by 20 million one year or down by 25 million another year. While the total handset population has nearly doubled in size, that 'second phone' portion has stayed flat. A steady 600 million every year. Now when we look at the total handset installed base, we find 3.2 Billion smartphones in use (out of 5.75 Billion total phones) which leaves us with 2.55 Billion dumbphones. This squares with the Pew survey we had last year that found smartphone vs dumbphone split globally to be about 54/46.

Now lets remove the 600 million, we get remaining phone OWNERS by their primary phone type, at 5.15 Billion, of whom 2.6B own a smartphone and 2.55B own a dumbphone. Now.. the math sits at 50.5%/49.5% in OWNERSHIP. Smartphone owners often have two devices, dumbphone owners nearly always only now have one device. 

Yes, there are some taxi drivers with four old Nokias, one on each network (or more likely one Samsung Galaxy Note with GPS mapping, and three old Nokia dumbphones).but their numbers are not large enough to matter. Who bothers to buy a second phone? A phone geek. Or someone who has a phone from work and a second phone for personal use. Or who wants two phones for whatever reason. They are not POOR people who barely can afford a used phone. They are the affluent, the young employed and geeky utterly mobile-addicted consumers. About half of the Industrialized World, if we want to generalize, but in reality of course among the wealthy upper middle class of the Emerging World city populations, this is a normal phenomenon.

But that is fascinating. While almost all mobile statistics keep growing every year, the number of second phones has been flat for essentially a decade, stubbornly stuck at 600 million in use. That gives us this insight about mobile phone users - perfectly in time for Barcelona and MWC:


WORLD MOBILE HANDSET OWNERSHIP AND POPULATION TABLE FOR 2017

Ownership By Number of Handsets Carried:
Smartphone Owners With 2 Smartphones . . . . . . . . 0.6 Billion (1.2 Billion Smartphones)
Smartphone Owners with 1 Smartphone . . . . . . . . . 2.0 Billion
Featurephone Owners with 1 Featurephone . . . . . . 2.55 Billion
Total Handset Unique Owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.15 Billion

Handset Population by Type
Total Smartphones in Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3.2 Billion
Total Featurephones in Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.55 Billion
Total Handsets in Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.75 Billion

Ownership of Handsets by Type
Smartphone Owners (with 1 or 2 devices) . . . . . . . . 2.6 Billion
Featurephone Owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.55 Billion
Total Handset Unique Owners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.15 Billion

Multiple Handset Ownership as Percent:
Smartphone Owners who Carry 2 Smartphone . . . . .23%
Handset Owners who Carry 2 Devices . . . . . . . . . . . 12%    

Source TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This data may be freely shared


First off, do I need to make this point? That NOBODY else has this info for you. NOBODY. You can't find the installed base handset population by smartphone/dumbphone split (or by multiple device ownership) at any other source currently. Nobody has this data (out in the open) except me. You're welcome! And any journalists and tech bloggers prepping for MWC Barcelona - this is about the most RELEVANT information you can have as 'background' to your article. Feel free to quote the source as TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 (and yes, I've reported on this number also, for a decade, hoping others can start to measure it as well, as this is FAR more relevant for the industry than what is the new sales market share of iPhone vs Samsung vs Xiaomi this past quarter.. - which this blog ALSO reports of course. Note, all info here on this blog is free, no ads, no subscription, no spam. We've had 6 million visitors over 12 years of the life of this blog and we are still with no ads, no subscription and no spam. You're welcome.)

That is what the handset population and ownership looks like. If you want to see all the mobile data, get you TomiAhonen Almanac 2017, you can pre-order it now via a special 3-for-1 offer (includes the full 2015 edition of the Almanac which was recently released as a Shareware edition which you may share with anyone you want). This special offer expires when I release the Almanac 2017 edition in a few days. See more here 3-for-1 Early Bird Special Offer.

Also for those who need all the details on the handset industry itself - the Almanac only has one chapter it devotes to handsets - the companion volume to the Almanac is the TomiAhonen Phone Book which only comes out every 2 years. It was just released two months ago, all the data is current to December 2016, so get the 4-for-2 offer here, if you want ALL the data on handsets like screen sizes, camera resolutions, OS platforms, new and used phones, features in the installed base like NFC, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc etc etc. See more here - 4-for-1 Offer for Phone Book and Almanac Bundle.

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Wayne

Haha, great question. I thought it would grow. There is certainly some part of the population that aspired to have two phones - or who found the need. BUT there probably is then a roughly-balancing 'exit' of people who once 'had' to carry 2 phones who have shrunk that to 1. I think this is in particular the Blackberry-crowd and the enterprise-phones, that has shrunk considerably with BOYD Bring Your Own Device policies that allow employees to use their own smartphones for work..

It is funny how steady the number is, where just about every other mobile number shows incredibly fast growth (and after peaking, haha, some show incredibly fast decline too). But the second phone set is a dead-flat-even 600 million year after year after year.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[E.Casais]

BLU? Isn't that the brand that came with Chinese spyware pre-installed?

Oh yes, it was discovered on the...BLU R1 HD (see https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/chinese-company-installed-secret-backdoor-on-hundreds-of-thousands-of-phones).

[Abdul Muis]

I thought ALL iPhone user were VERY RICH. And here I'm found that iPhone user who use cheap android as a backup.

A couple years back, I was visiting Hong Kong, and I saw a couple of people using BOTH Galaxy S5 & Note 4. This android user buy TWO of the most expensive android phone. Is he rich?? because according to iUser all the rich dude buy iPhone, and yet, .........

It is a common view here in Asia, that a person could own/use 2 flagship phone. Such as Xperia Z5 & Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 & Galaxy S7 Edge. And, PS, in Asia we PAY the FULL PRICE.

[Abdul Muis]

@Wayne

My point here is, You always say that iPhone user were richer than Android user, *but* you were proven wrong!!!

[johnleslie]

This is my very first time that I am visiting here and I’m truly pleasurable to see everything at one place.
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