PULSE · HOW THESE NUMBERS WORK
How Many Phones the World Makes and How Much Data It Creates — And Why These Counters Say 'est.'
Somewhere a factory in Shenzhen is boxing a phone and a data centre in Virginia is writing a video stream to disk. So how many smartphones does the world actually make, how much digital data does it create, who counts all this, and why do these counters wear an 'est.' badge instead of claiming to meter the whole digital world live?
Two of the defining flows of the modern world are invisible: the phones rolling off assembly lines and the data piling up in the world's servers. Neither is something you can watch happen. But measured across a year, the scale is staggering — and together they sketch the shape of the digital world as it actually is. These two counters show those flows as running daily totals. Like the population and energy counters beside them, they wear an est. badge, and understanding why is the key to reading them honestly.
The numbers, and how to feel them
The world makes about 1.24 billion smartphones a year — roughly 39 every second. And it creates about 149 zettabytes of data a year — roughly 4,700 terabytes a second, or some 408 million terabytes a day. Our counters spread each figure evenly across the seconds and show what has accumulated since midnight UTC.
To picture them: in the time it takes to read this sentence, the world has built a few hundred phones and created more data than every book ever written.
Which number is the honest one?
Each counter made a deliberate choice about which figure to count.
For smartphones, we count new phones shipped — not the large and growing second-hand market. A counter called "smartphones made today" should count phones manufactured, so we use the new-shipments figure and tell you about refurbished sales here.
For data, we count the full Global DataSphere — created, captured, replicated and consumed — because that is the standard, widely-quoted number. But the honest reading is "data flowing through the world's systems", not "brand-new information stored forever": most of it is transient video and sensor data, copied or streamed rather than uniquely created.
Nobody meters the digital world live
There is no global sensor wired to every factory and server. Smartphone figures come from IDC's tracker (cross-checked against Canalys and Counterpoint); the data figure from IDC's Global DataSphere. They are authoritative annual measures — but they are measured and published once a year, not streamed second by second.
So what are the counters doing?
Each one takes the most recent verified figure and spreads it evenly across the roughly 31.6 million seconds in a year, then shows how much has built up since midnight UTC. It is an honest average made visible, not a live meter. That is the whole philosophy of Pulse: show the pace honestly, label the estimate as an estimate, and always leave a door open to the solid data behind it.
Where to see it
The counters are the single planetary figures. The machines behind both — the data centres where the world's data is stored and moved — have their own layer on the Grid canvas. The phones and the data are the flow; Grid is where the infrastructure actually stands.
Frequently asked questions
How many smartphones does the world make in a year?
About 1.24 billion in 2024 — that is the figure our counter is built on, from IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. Turned into a rate it works out to roughly 39 phones every second, so over a full day our counter climbs toward about 3.4 million. This is one of the most solid numbers on Pulse: it is not a single estimate but a tally that three independent trackers — IDC, Canalys and Counterpoint — each measured at around 1.2 billion for the same year, agreeing to within a few percent. It is the same calibre of hard industry count as the car-production figure, where the world's motor-vehicle body publishes the total from manufacturer reports.
Does that count second-hand phones?
No — and we are careful about that, because it changes the number. Our 1.24-billion figure is new smartphones shipped, excluding refurbished and second-hand units. The used-phone market is large and growing fast (well over 300 million refurbished handsets change hands in a year), but a counter called 'smartphones made today' should count phones actually manufactured, not resold. So we count the new-shipments figure and mention the second-hand market here, rather than inflating the counter by folding it in.
How much data does the world create in a day?
About 408 million terabytes a day — which comes from the most-cited figure in the field, IDC's Global DataSphere, of roughly 149 zettabytes created worldwide in 2024. A zettabyte is a billion terabytes, and a terabyte is a thousand gigabytes, so the scale is genuinely hard to picture. Spread across the seconds of a year, that is roughly 4,700 terabytes every second. As a sanity check, an independent compilation by Statista puts the daily figure at about 402.74 million terabytes — within about one percent of ours — so the rate is well-corroborated, not a lone guess.
Is all that data really 'created', or is a lot of it copied?
Most of it is copied or fleeting, and the honest figure includes that — so it is worth understanding exactly what it counts. IDC's DataSphere measures data created, captured, replicated and consumed. A huge share is transient: a video you stream is 'consumed' but never stored by you; a file synced to the cloud is 'replicated'. The amount of genuinely unique, newly-created data is far smaller than the headline. We count the full DataSphere figure because that is the standard, widely-quoted number — but the honest reading is 'data flowing through the world's systems', not 'brand-new information stored forever'. Far more of the world's data is video streams and sensor feeds than is documents and photographs kept for good.
Are these counters metering the digital world live?
No, and that is the whole reason for the 'est.' badge. There is no global meter wired to every phone factory and every data centre reporting in real time. What we do instead is take the most recent verified annual figures — smartphone shipments and the DataSphere total — and spread each one evenly across the seconds, then show how much has accumulated since midnight UTC. It is an honest average made visible, not a live sensor. Real activity is not even: phone production peaks before the holidays and data creation climbs relentlessly year on year. The counters deliberately do not pretend to track those swings second by second.
Who measures all this, and where can I see it?
Smartphone shipments come from IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, cross-checked against Canalys and Counterpoint; the data figure comes from IDC's Global DataSphere, the standard industry measure. Both ultimately rest on the world's digital infrastructure — the data centres where data is stored and moved. You can explore that infrastructure on the Grid canvas's data-centres layer: the counters here are the single planetary figures, and that map is where the machines behind them actually sit.
SEE IT LIVE
This number is live on Pulse, and it taps straight through to the map that proves it.