A Look Back at 2013: Which Country Has The Most Cell Phones?

As the year winds down, book stores are full of almanacs and other time capsules reflecting on the year that was.  

Throughout the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at some of features in the World Almanac and Book of Facts 2014, which was released in print in November and in e-publication earlier this month.

Let’s take a look at the year in device usage: Cell phones, Internet and more!

World Cell Phone Usage by Subscriptions

1. China
2. India
3. United States
4. Indonesia
5. Russia

What’s interesting to note is that wireless subscribers have been counted since 1985 — there were cell phones in 1985? In 1985, in the United States, there about 340,000 cell subscribers. In 1995, that number grew to 33.8 million; and in 2005, to 207.9 million. In 2012, the last year recorded for the World Almanac, it was 326.4 million — wow!

Some more fun facts about cell phones… In 2007, text message usage accounted for only 31 percent of all cell usage and picture-taking as only 33 percent. In 2012, cell phones usage for text messages was 82 percent and picture-taking was 79 percent. Sounds about right for this blogger.

There were a couple more neat facts stuffed into the World Almanac’s computer and telecommunications chapter, including Internet usage stats.

Nations with the Most Internet Users, 2012

1. China, 489.5 million
2. U.S., 271.4m
3. India, 190.3

And what do you think was the most-visited website in 2013? Well, anything Google of course! That one was sort of easy. (Google includes the search engine Google.com, YouTube and even Blogger.com.)

One final Internet stat… The most popular social networking site, in case you weren’t sure, is indeed Facebook. LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest round out the Top 5, in that order.

This post also appeared on my site: DanielleMastersonBooks.com.