Report: South Korea has the highest rate of smartphone ownership

Smartphone usage by country.
(Image credit: iStock)

A higher percentage of South Koreans own smartphones (88 percent) and use the internet (94 percent) than in any other of the 40 countries surveyed in a Pew Research Center report out Monday. Since 2013, smartphone ownership has steadily increased in countries with emerging economies, including Turkey, Malaysia, Chile, and Brazil.

Across all 40 countries, about three-quarters of adults said they used the internet at least once a day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, millennials were more likely to be internet and smartphone users than members of older generations.

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.