How many vending machines are there?
Japan has close to 4 million vending machines, roughly one for every 31 people, which is the highest density anywhere by a wide margin and is the reason the machines are a national cliché. The usual explanations — high land prices, low crime, a cash-heavy economy, an ageing labour force — all contribute, and the low crime rate is the load-bearing one, since machines full of cash survive unattended on residential streets. The United States has perhaps 5 to 7 million, mostly indoors. Worldwide the total is on the order of 15 million.
How the figure is arrived at
Japan's figure is a real industry census — the manufacturers' and operators' association surveys installed units annually and splits them by product category. Everywhere else the number is a market-research extrapolation from operator revenues, which is why the global total is soft while the Japanese one is not.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 12,000,000
- High estimate
- 18,000,000
- Spread
- 1.5× 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 computers are there in the world? roughly 2 billion personal computers in use
Common questions
- How many vending machines are there?
- roughly 15 million worldwide — about 4 million in Japan alone
- How is that estimated?
- Japan's figure is a real industry census — the manufacturers' and operators' association surveys installed units annually and splits them by product category. Everywhere else the number is a market-research extrapolation from operator revenues, which is why the global total is soft while the Japanese one is not.
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