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Almost 50% Of US Adults Own Smartphones–Pew

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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It is good news for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Motorola Mobility (NASDAQ: MMI), Samsung, and perhaps even Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) The Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that

Nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners as of February 2012, an increase of 11 percentage points over the 35% of Americans who owned a smartphone last May. Two in five adults (41%) own a cell phone that is not a smartphone, meaning that smartphone owners are now more prevalent within the overall population than owners of more basic mobile phones.

The improvement should also boost the fortunes of AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint Nextel, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ). The sales have been based very heavily on the sales of next generation smartphones, particularly those which work on 4G networks

But, hidden beneath the good news is some that is not good at all. The major carriers have to pay large amount to buy smartphones, particularly the iPhone. They also have to pay Apple a piece of the subscriber fees that they collect. So, the profitability of this model is no question.

There is also trouble for some of the smartphone companies. Recent research shows that most manufacturers loss money on a per unit basis as they try to elbow their ways into the US market. The only exceptions are Apple and Samsung. For the balance, they may never make any money at all.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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