26+ Mobile Photography Statistics (May 2026)

People are taking photos at an extreme scale and keeping thousands of images on their devices.

• About 1.8 trillion photos are taken worldwide each year. (Max Spielmann)
• In 2023, about 54,400 photos were taken per second. (Max Spielmann)
• iPhone users store about 2,400 photos on their devices. (Max Spielmann)
• Android users store roughly 1,900 photos. (Max Spielmann)

Selfies are a daily habit, especially among younger users, and make up a large share of total photos.

• On average, people spend seven minutes per day taking selfies. (Social Psychological and Personality Science)
• Among people aged 18-24, one in three photos taken is a selfie. (Social Psychological and Personality Science)
• People in Europe take about 597 selfies per year. (HONOR)
• In the UK, people take about 468 selfies per year. (HONOR)
• In the UK and the Netherlands, men take more selfies per week than women: about 11 vs. nine. (HONOR)
• Europeans take about 11 seconds to decide if a selfie is worth keeping. (HONOR)
• Europeans spend about 26 minutes deciding before sharing a selfie on social media. (HONOR)

Mobile photography is heavily driven by younger users, who take and share more photos than older groups.

• Some 82% of young people (ages 18 to 34) have taken a selfie, compared with 63% of those aged 35-54 and 44% of those aged 55+. (Max Spielmann)
• People aged 16-29 take 16% more photos on their smartphones than those over 30. (HONOR)
• Across Europe, about 45% of smartphone photos are shared with friends and family on social media. (HONOR)
• Europeans are 3.5x more likely to post outdoor selfies than ones taken at nightclubs or "out raving". (HONOR)

Photo editing is now a standard part of mobile photography, with many users relying on apps to improve their images. Even professionals use smartphones in their workflow, but mostly for support tasks or personal use rather than primary shooting.

• In 2025, Picsart AI was the most downloaded photo editor app in the US with over 7.8M downloads, followed by Lightroom with more than 6M. (Statista)
• About four in 10 (43%) US smartphone users regularly use photo editing apps. (Statista)
• Roughly 11% of photographers use a smartphone for about half of their professional shots. (Digital Photography Review)
• 29% of professional photographers use a smartphone for 50% of their personal photos. (Digital Photography Review)
• A full 86% of professional photographers who use smartphones shoot with an Apple iPhone. (Digital Photography Review)
• Some 20% of photographers use smartphones for behind-the-scenes work. (Digital Photography Review)

Dial in your shots with the calculators below.

• Exposure calculator;
• Crop factor calculator;
• Hyperfocal distance calculator; and
• Camera field of view calculator.