"South Korea stands out as the country with the highest smartphone ownership rate."

In a newly released Pew Research Center survey about smartphone ownership and Internet usage in 2015, conducted across 40 nations and with 45,435 respondents, it was reported that 88 percent of adult Koreans own a smartphone. This is more than double the global median average of 43 percent.

A cross section of the survey showed that 100 percent of Koreans between the ages of 18 and 34 owned smartphones, while 83 percent of people over 35 owned them. Using education as an index, 80 percent of "less educated" people and 95 percent of "more educated" people used smartphones. Using income level, 79 percent of people in lower income brackets and 95 percent in the higher income brackets owned smartphones.


In the survey, Korea also ranked highest for Internet usage, with a rate of 94 percent. Australia, at 93 percent, Canada at 90 percent, the U.S. at 89 percent and the U.K. at 88 percent followed in the rankings. The global median for smartphone and Internet usage in the 40 countries surveyed was 67 percent.

It was reported that a majority of citizens in the 34 countries of the 40 surveyed used the Internet at least once per day. Meanwhile, 58 percent of Koreans said they go online several times throughout the day.

By Lee Hana
Korea.net Staff Writer
Data: Pew Research Center
hlee10@korea.kr