Two-thirds of young adults and those with higher income are smartphone owners

On the eve of Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 5, 45% of American adults own smartphones. They are particularly popular with young adults and those living in relatively higher income households.

These findings come from a survey of 3,014 adults by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project between August 7-September 6, 2012.

More American adults own smartphones than own feature cell phones—that is, the phones that can be used as a phone and for texting, but do not have a smartphone operating system such as Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. Some 34% of adults have a feature phone; 5% of adults say they do not know if they have a smartphone or not; and 15% of American adults have no cell phone at all.

These latest figures show that smartphone ownership has increased from 35% in May of 2011 to 45%,  though there has been no change in smartphone ownership from figures that the Pew Internet Project found in a survey at the beginning of the year.

Survey questions are available for download here.