Pew: Almost 70 Percent Of Affluent Adults Own Smartphones

The Pew Internet & American Life project has

released some new survey data about smartphone ownership in anticipation of tomorrow’s iPhone announcement. Based on a survey of more than 3,000 adults earlier this month, Pew says that 45 percent of Americans 18 and older now own smartphones. However the numbers go up when looking only at  mobile subscribers (88 percent of all adults).

Pew says that among mobile phone owners smartphone penetration is 53 percent. Nielsen says that it’s now 55 percent and comScore reports that smartphone penetration is just over 49 percent. Flurry Analytics, the outlier, said in a recent report that 78 percent of US mobile phone owners now carry smartphones.

Source: Nielsen (July 2012)

According to the Pew data, confirming other research, smartphone ownership is greater for more affluent Americans as well as younger users. Smartphone penetration is highest among those 18 to 49 and for those making more than $50,000 per year, especially those whose incomes exceed $75,000 annually. Sixty eight percent of that group now have smartphones.

Here’s Pew’s demographic breakdown of US smartphone ownership:

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Nielsen reports similar demographics but drills down on younger user-adoption of smartphones, especially teens:

Overall, young adults are leading the growth in smartphone ownership in the U.S., with 74 percent of 25-34 year olds now owning smartphones, up from 59 percent in July 2011. Interestingly, teenagers between 13 and 17 years old demonstrated the most dramatic increases in smartphone adoption, with the majority of American teens (58%) owning a smartphone, compared to roughly a third (36%) of teens saying they owned a smartphone just a year ago.

Android controls the largest share of the US smartphone market; the iPhone is second according to comScore.

Source: comScore (August 2012)

There’s enormous anticipation of the iPhone 5 with such high expectations that whatever Apple announces tomorrow it’s bound to disappoint. However, Danny will be “in the room” tomorrow live blogging the announcement.