Hong Kong, Singapore have highest number of tablet and smartphone users

According to a new report from wireless equipment and telecom infrastructure vendor Ericsson, Hong Kong and Singapore have the highest percentage of tablet and smartphone users on the planet, and will most likely continue on the same path until 2017.

The Swedish firm interviewed 47,500 internet users aged between 16 and 60 in 58 countries in the first quarter of 2012, Chinese news service Xinhua said. Hong Kong came out on top of the tablets with 34 percent of web users saying they owned one, while in Singapore the market penetration rate was a fraction less at 31 percent.

But the Lion City could be about to storm ahead of its old rival, according to Vishnu Singh, regional head of Ericsson ConsumerLab. Singh told Xinhua that tablet market penetration there would almost double by the end of the year to nearly 60 percent.

When it comes to smartphones, Singapore also edges out Hong Kong although just by one percentage point, 74 percent versus 73 percent.

The United Arab Emirates is the surprise third placed country, with 64 percent of adults there owning a smartphone. It’s not a massive shock to see Singapore and Hong Kong, both cities competing to be Asia’s pre-eminent technology hub, come out on top in the report. Both have predominantly urban, affluent and gadget-hungry populations and advanced mobile networks.

Mobile internet penetration in Hong Kong is predicted to grow from 60.9 percent last year to 93.1 percent by 2016, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

And as impressive as these numbers may be, it’s to countries like China and India that the tablet and smartphone makers are looking for serious growth, because while the penetration rates there may be comparatively lower, the actual user numbers are much larger on average.

As the percentage of users owning such devices increases, so will the clamour at the IT manager’s door for BYOD programs.

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