How many computers are there in the world?
Around 2 billion desktops and laptops are in active use, a figure that has been roughly flat for a decade because tablet and smartphone growth absorbed what would have been PC growth. Annual shipments run at about 250 to 300 million units against an installed base with a typical replacement cycle of five to six years, which is the arithmetic that fixes the total. If you count every device with a general-purpose processor the question dissolves — there are tens of billions of microcontrollers, several in every car and appliance.
How the figure is arrived at
Install-base modelling rather than counting. Take reported quarterly shipments by vendor, apply a survival curve describing how long a machine stays in use before retirement, and integrate. The survival curve is the soft part, and lengthening replacement cycles have repeatedly caused analysts to under-count the installed base.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 1,500,000,000
- High estimate
- 2,500,000,000
- Spread
- 1.7× between the bounds
Other things people built counts
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many airports are there in the world? about 45,000 with runways — but only around 4,000 with scheduled airline service
- How many ATMs are there in the world? about 3 million
- How many cities are there in the world? about 10,000 with over 50,000 people; 33 megacities over 10 million
- How many buildings are there in the world? somewhere between 1.5 and 4 billion
- How many miles of road are there in the world? about 64 million km — roughly 40 million miles
Common questions
- How many computers are there in the world?
- roughly 2 billion personal computers in use
- How is that estimated?
- Install-base modelling rather than counting. Take reported quarterly shipments by vendor, apply a survival curve describing how long a machine stays in use before retirement, and integrate. The survival curve is the soft part, and lengthening replacement cycles have repeatedly caused analysts to under-count the installed base.
Related pages
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many people are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? Living things and the natural world
- How many ants are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many trees are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place