My Cellphone My Terms

At the end of Q2, 8.5 million Smartphones users in Canada

Amazing isn’t it! Based on the quarterly results of the major wireless carriers, myCELLmyTERMS estimates there are 8.5 million smartphones in use in Canada and growing. Only a few short years ago, smartphones were considered a specialty device aimed at prosumers (professional consumers) and certainly were not considered mainstream. We have certainly come a far way from 2002 when RIM released its first BlackBerry.

A year ago, TELUS reported that 22% of its postpaid base, about 1.1 Million were smartphone subscribers, 1 year later that number has more than doubled to 2.5 million smartphone subscribers. This is not isolated to TELUS, Rogers has the largest smartphone subscriber base with a staggaring 3.6 million users with smartphones in their hands. Add in Bell  the new entrants and regional players and you end up with a staggering 8.5 million smartphone users.

The rate of growth is also staggering, when we look at cell phone activations, smartphones now represent ~40% of all new activations and will likely represent 1 in every 2 activations by the end of the year.

Here are some interesting facts:

The net result is that those who make the best smartphones are the fast growing cell phone companies in the world – in the last quarter Apple led the way with over 20 million iPhones shipped, following by Samsung with 19 million, then Nokia and RIM.