Personal smartphone average capacity exceeded 100GB

It is common for many people to take photos and videos with their smartphones and install a few GB of data in games. Among these, the storage space required for smartphones is on the rise. Research firm Counterpoint Research revealed that in the fourth quarter of 2020, the average smartphone capacity finally exceeded 100GB.

Storage space is an important issue for consumers who are considering purchasing a smartphone. Companies are also actively investing to increase storage space. As a result, the average smartphone capacity has steadily increased. According to the survey, in the fourth quarter of 2020, the average capacity installed on smartphones exceeded 100 GB for the first time. In the fourth quarter of 2020, iOS-equipped smartphones averaged 140.9 GB, and Android-equipped smartphones averaged 95.7 GB. Summarizing these results, the average smartphone capacity exceeded 100GB.

Overall, the trend continues for iPhones to have more average capacity than Android devices. However, the gap between the two is getting narrower. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the average iOS device capacity was 137.8 GB, and the Android average capacity was 81 GB, the difference being 56.8 GB. However, the difference between the two in the fourth quarter of 2020 has decreased to 45.2 GB.

Since the introduction of the iPhone with 512GB storage space in 2018, Apple has not released an iPhone that exceeds this capacity, but products with more than 512GB storage space are appearing on Android devices. For example, in 2019, Samsung Electronics began mass-producing smartphones (Galaxy S10 +) with 1TB storage space, and a number of 1TB models appeared.

However, this does not mean that the number of consumers buying mass storage devices has increased significantly. IPhone 256~512GB model sales share was 27.2% in the fourth quarter of 2019, but declined to 21.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020. In addition, the number of consumers who purchase a model with 256GB or more on Android devices has not increased sharply to 6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 7.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Instead, consumers tend to increase the minimum storage space they purchase. On Android devices, the sales share of 128GB of storage space surged from 26.2% in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 39% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Related information can be found here.