Non-Smartphones Could Be All But Extinct in the U.S., Says Recent Consumer Poll

Like the ancient Walkmans and portable CD players of old, the basic mobile phone might be close to falling almost completely out of use, according to a poll by the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. I’m feeling a very poignant sense of nostalgia for buttons right now.

The survey, which contacted 500 U.S.-based adults who’d activated a new or used phone in the past three months (so, admittedly, an incredibly small sample size), found that only 3% of consumers had purchased a “non-smartphone” in that time period. This is down from 20% that was reported by a similar survey last year around this time, so it’s a fairly significant leap. 

However, basic mobile phones aren’t the least popular phones just yet—they’re still beating out Windows and Blackberry phones, which only accounted for 1% each. Of the remaining 95%, 53 went to Apple and the other 42 went to the Apple iOS, which is actually a pretty sizeable increase for Android overall.

So what does this mean for the regular ‘ol dumb phone? Sure, people are buying them less right now, but that doesn’t mean their time is done just yet. Remember when everyone said vinyl albums would fade into obsoleteness? Perhaps 10 years from now, it’ll suddenly become popular to own t9-capable phones again in Bushwick, or somewhere else sufficiently and insufferably hip.

You’ll wish you’d kept your old taco-shape Nokia N-Gage then, mark my words.

(via Phys.org, image via John Wardell)

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