Believe it or not, as recently as 15 years ago cell phones were barely in the periphery of society. They were around, sure, but having one was anything but a commonality. Usually, having a cell phone meant your parents were well-to-do.
Fast forward those 15 years and things have changed drastically. Now, it seems like everyone has a cell phone and that’s because just about everyone actually does have one. The numbers, when you stop to think about them, are rather staggering.
Inside the Numbers
It would be easy to simply say “a lot more people have cell phones than they did 15 years ago.” But it wouldn’t really provide the brevity needed. Think about it this way:
- In 2019, the number of people using cell phones worldwide exceeded 5 billion. The population of the world at this time was 7.7 billion people. That is nearly 65% of the entire Earth using cell phones.
- Of those 7.7 billion people, 63% of them already own at least one cell phone.
- A whopping 95% of Americans own a cell phone of some type. Of these, 77% say that they own a smartphone.
- And if that wasn’t impressive enough, 100% of U.S. Adults in a Pew survey aged 18 to 29 said they owned a cell phone.
If you didn’t understand the impact of cell phones and their rise in popularity, those numbers should really begin to drive the point home. It is no longer an exaggeration to say that “everyone owns a cell phone.” It might not be 100%, but the numbers continue to climb and it may be only a matter of time before anyone over the age of 5 has a cell phone of their own.
Mint Mobile
In the decade and a half referenced above, not only do many more people now have cell phones but there is a plethora of smartphone providers. Even less-known companies like Mint Mobile have sprung up to create more affordable, quality options from the over-priced big boys out there.
There are plenty of mint mobile reviews as well as other mobile reviews out there that can give you a good idea of who to go with. The Mint Mobile network piggybacks off of T-Mobile’s towers, meaning they can pass the savings of not needing infrastructure down to the customer.
Services like these have become more commonplace and that should be of little surprise. As technology develops, the innovators generally can charge whatever they want to start. Then, as the technology, because more easily and cheaply produced, the costs begin to fall and become more affordable to a wider swath of the audience.