Taiwan has about 7.07 million smartphone or tablet computer users, which is about one-third of the population, according to the results of a survey released on Thursday.
The results of the poll, conducted by the Innovative Digi Tech-Enabled Applications and Services Institute and the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Department of Industrial Technology, showed that the number of smart--phone users increased from 2.97 million to 6.09 million as of the second quarter of this year compared with last year.
Meanwhile, the number of people using tablet computers in the same period rose to 2.32 million, or 10 percent of the population, the survey found.
Up to 56.8 percent and 24 percent of Taiwanese are expected to own smartphones and tablets respectively by 2015, the researchers said.
Respondents said that they most often used such devices when traveling, watching TV or shopping.
Almost 67 percent of those polled said they used their handsets to reference maps or book plane tickets, while 30.8 percent used them to look up information while watching TV. Another 26.5 percent used the devices to check prices or read different product reviews while shopping at retail outlets, the survey showed.
The survey concluded that the use of smart devices was growing rapidly nationwide, with the number of people now text messaging, using applications, logging on to Facebook or downloading discount coupons increasing dramatically.
The poll was conducted between June 25 and July 8, and received 2,503 valid samples. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.96 percentage points.
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