BYOD Statistics

About 10 years ago, the concept of bringing your device to work and using it for work was only at a nascent stage. Most companies and workers couldn’t imagine it would grow this big in the future. And that future is here now. Over the last 5-10 years, BYOD has expanded a lot. Considering its benefits for both employers and employees, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Today, many companies have standing BYOD policies that govern how employees can use personal devices at their job to prevent security mishaps. Check out our latest BYOD statistics to learn more about the concept and the trends shaping this segment.

BYOD Statistics (Editor’s Choice)

• 66.6% of the total global population uses mobile devices today. (Datareportal)
• 69% of IT leaders in the US feel positive about BYOD. (Cisco)
• 64% of IT managers and users believe that BYOD boosts productivity. (Forbes)
• 80% of all BYOD are unmanaged. (Cass Information Systems)
• BYOD market is projected to grow by more than $366.95 billion by 2022. (Beta News)
• 55% of the high-performing workforce already use BYOD. (Staffbase)
• 58.3% of employees said the pandemic boosted the use of personal devices in their work. (Digital Information World)
• By 2023, 30% of IT organizations will extend their BYOD policy to include human augmentation tech. (BMC)

General BYOD Stats

1. 66.6% of the total global population uses mobile devices today.

Out of the total population, 5.22 billion use mobile phones. The number of unique mobile users has risen by 1.8% since January 2020 (93 million). Further, the total number of unique mobile connections has expanded by 72 million (0.9%), hitting 8.02 billion from the beginning of 2021.

(Datareportal)

2. 70% of employees keep their phone ‘within eye contact’ while working.

Even if the company doesn’t have a BYOD policy, BYOD statistics show that many workers often check their phones while working. One of the main reasons is personal messaging (65%). Next, 51% check weather sites, while 44% read the news. Others play games or shop online (25% each). Also, 12% visit traffic sites, followed by 7% who use it to gossip, and 6% to check sales. Finally, some use it to visit adult or dating sites (4% and 3%, respectively).

(CNBC)

3. 97% of Americans own some kind of cellphone.

In line with recent BYOD stats, almost all Americans own some sort of cellphone. The biggest share uses smartphones (85%); only 11% use older cellphones. Among gender demographics, slightly more women than men own cellphones (98% vs. 97%). In terms of smartphones, both groups stand at 85%.

(Pew Research)

4. Companies secure 240 extra working hours if they adopt BYOD practices.

Using personal devices for work has multiple benefits for the organization, according to BYOD statistics. Besides making employees happier, the company saves a lot of time per year. In fact, the number of working hours gained in a year translates into $5,114 in extra work or six additional working weeks (per employee).

(Ontech)

5. 69% of IT leaders in the US feel positive about BYOD.

According to the recent Cisco study, the BYOD trend is a positive thing for their organization, the majority of IT leaders confirm. However, this doesn’t apply to the US only. For instance, 89% of global IT leaders support bringing your own device to work practice.

(Cisco)

6. 49% of workers believe that BYOD boosts productivity.

BYOD productivity statistics indicate that nearly half of all surveyed employees feel more productive with their own devices. It’s understandable considering that most people tend to avoid communicating on devices they don’t feel comfortable with. Moreover, 82% of employees believe that smartphones have a critical role in their productivity.

(Staffbase)

7. 78% of employees feel that using a single device at work and home improves work-life balance.

The use of personal devices at work policy could help employees achieve a higher balance between their professional and personal lives. Having all the data in one phone is much more accessible and easier to work with for employees. In turn, the direct impact on productivity is more than significant, BYOD statistics confirm.

(Staffbase)

8. Companies using BYOD save over $1,097 per employee on average.

According to recent calculations, the average smartphone user spends approximately $363 on their device. On top of that, an average of $734 is spent on corporate data plans and support, insurance, and similar costs. Again, now these costs are shifted from the company to the employee and result in huge savings.

(Staffbase)

9. Employees of large companies have over 2,000 unsafe apps installed on their mobile devices.

A recent study of 400,000 apps across Apple and Android phones revealed some worrying BYOD statistics. It seems that large companies have, on average, 2,000 unsafe apps on their staff’s mobile devices, and they represent a potential risk for data theft. Many of these apps pose a threat because they access insecure third-party frameworks or intentionally compromised malicious apps.

(Tech Monitor)

10. 80% of all BYOD are unmanaged.

Recent surveys and MDM statistics indicate that companies most often don’t have any system in place to monitor BYOD. Companies risk running into security issues and data leaks without proper BYOD management. Still, 77% of employees haven’t received instructions on BYOD, while 64% of companies have a bring-your-own-device policy.

(Cass Information Systems)

11. 83% of companies enable BYOD for some employees at least.

Most organizations allow BYOD practices to some employees, if not the entire company. According to BYOD adoption statistics, 24% provide devices for less than 20% of their workforce, while 28% provide mobile devices for a minimum of 20% of their employees. Further, 17% of businesses offer it to all of their workers. On the other hand, 31% of organizations don’t provide mobile phones for any workers.

(Zippia)

12. Employees claim they gained nearly an hour of work and an hour of personal time per day by using smartphones.

Many surveyed respondents among US companies claimed using mobile devices at work helped them get the work done while saving time — not only working time but also personal time each day. Moreover, it increased productivity levels by 34%.

(Samsung)

13. 66% of employees use smartphones for their work.

Although smartphones are one of the main devices people use in their workplace, they spend time on others as well. So employees use 2.5 devices on average. These include smartphones, computers, tablets, laptops, and e-readers, as BYOD statistics indicate.

(Zippia)

14. Organizations with standing BYOD policies reimburse their employees between $30 and $50 per month.

BYOD reimbursement is a typical practice among companies that have adopted this policy. That’s why many of them have implemented mobile device management platforms to control their employees’ spending, device purchases, and similar.

(Samsung)

15. 69% of BYOD companies feel positive about the impact mobile devices make on collaboration, timely work, and productivity.

Like the companies with BYOD practices, 78% of organizations that provide mobile devices to a significant number of their employees feel the same. Further, the companies that provide mobile devices to 20% of their workforce at least and put the rest on BYOD register the most positive results.

(Zippia)

16. More than 17% of workers use personal devices for work without telling the IT department.

BYOD statistics suggest that even without an official policy in this segment, employees still use personal devices for work. Not just that, but they don’t report this practice to their IT. In turn, this can cause significant security problems.

(Zippia)

17. 85% of educational institutions allow their staff and students to use personal devices on the school networks.

Approximately 80.7% of educational institutions do not even consider the device type before providing access. In fact, only 19.3% consider the device type before allowing someone into the network. Since these organizations can’t afford a constant supply of devices (to their staff), students and professors often resort to BYOD in school, statistics show. Although this allows them to participate in a new learning style, it’s also a perfect chance for cybercriminals to get into sensitive data.

(EdTech: Focus on Higher Education)

18. 38.2% of schools update their BYOD policies when introducing new tech into their network.

Based on the trends in BYOD practiced in schools, only a small number of organizations have frequent updates. In fact, 24.3% update their BYOD policy annually, while 17.8% never do. However, 46% of schools require an antivirus product to be installed before anyone connects to their network.

(EdTech: Focus on Higher Education)

19. 55% of professionals believe smartphones are their most exposed endpoints.

Ponemon Institute research concluded that smartphones fall into the category of most critical security concerns for most organizations. Other than that, 50% believe laptops are also highly vulnerable, 24% think the same of tablets, while 48% pointed out other mobile devices. BYOD statistics show that only 34% thought desktop computers were the most vulnerable endpoints.

(Expert Insights)

20. People complete only 21.2% of the updates straight away on their managed enterprise Android devices.

A big challenge with BYOD workplace is that employees often fail to comply with some of the necessary measures. For instance, the remote workforce often fails in updating the new patches of the operating system on their managed Android devices. While most updates are not made immediately, 18.2% are deferred, followed by 12.2% that end up windowed. Finally, a staggering 48.5% of updates are never realized.

(Expert Insights)

21. Besides employees, contractors are the next group most organizations allow the use of BYOD, with 23%.

According to BYOD stats, most surveyed organizations (76%) allow the use of their own devices to their employees. Following that, most organizations allow the same to their contractors (23%) and partners (16%). However, only 14% allow the same to customers, and 9% to suppliers. Alternatively, 17% of organizations claimed they don’t allow BYOD to any of these groups.

(Crowd Research)

22. In 69% of organizations, the IT department is in charge of setting up a BYOD policy.

Typically, IT departments define the rules of BYOD use in the organization. Following IT, in 55% of the cases, it’s security teams, followed by compliance and regulatory (24%).On rare occasions, HR is in charge of this task (12%) or some other teams (6%).

(Crowd Research)

BYOD Growth Statistics

23. 67% of people use personal devices in their workplace.

Microsoft found that almost 67% of surveyed workers use personal devices at their work. Many use it regardless of whether the company has a BYOD workplace policy or not. Typically, this goes for millennials who believe they have more experience with IT and should be able to use their own devices.

(CBS News)

24. The BYOD market will grow at a 15% CAGR between 2021 and 2026.

Thanks to the fast development of techs like 4G and 5G, BYOD is rapidly expanding in developing and developed nations. On top of that, there is an increase in smartphone usage that is further pushing this growth, BYOD statistics demonstrate. In addition, the rising numbers of medium and small companies, fueled by the startup culture, led to the willingness of the companies to accept BYOD as part of their work style.

(Research and Markets)

25. BYOD market is projected to grow by over $366.95 billion by 2022.

For a clearer picture, the industry was worth $30 billion in 2014. However, besides the US being the largest market, some other fast-growing regions in the world are pushing this rapid growth. For instance, Asia-Pacific is driving the expansion of this segment with a 20.8% CAGR between 2014 and 2022, BYOD growth statistics show.

(Beta News)

26. 31% of employees use their personal devices for work because they want to have everything in one place.

Other than wanting to have both professional and personal data in one place, 29.3% of employees use their personal device because the employer didn’t provide one. Moreover, 28.1% chose to use their own mobile device because it’s better than the employers’.

(Zippia)

Trends in BYOD

27. 55% of high-performing workforces already use BYOD.

BYOD adoption statistics suggest that more than half of the top companies that focus on customer experience have already allowed personal devices use. Most of them proactively introduced relevant policies on the issue and follow the latest work trends.

(Staffbase)

28. 82% of workers think that smartphones will be crucial for employee productivity in the coming years.

IBM findings suggest that one of the latest BYOD trends refers to its impact on productivity. It is only a matter of time when will workers embrace smartphones for business use on a more massive scale. Some already have.

(Our People)

29. Mobile devices comprise 60% of digital fraud.

The number of smartphones is rising, and so is the number of mobile security threats. Typically, attackers target mobile devices via phishing or stolen passwords, BYOD stats suggest. Moreover, since many people use mobiles for sensitive activities like banking, security is crucial. Hence, implementing good mobile device management software is of vital importance.

(Reader’s Digest)

30. 74% of organizations believe the acts of careless employees caused the attack on their business.

Despite the recent progress in cybersecurity tools, many organizations suffer from careless employees. Especially since companies started adopting BYOD business policies. For instance, 86% of companies don’t have cybersecurity functions that meet their needs, and 57% recently experienced an incident, BYOD statistics indicate.

(EY)

31. 65% of people always rely on the same password or its variation.

Most people understand and acknowledge that using the same password is a risk, yet the majority always rely on it. This happens even though 79% of people agree that compromised passwords are a great concern. Still, 45% of people didn’t even change passwords after the data breach. Finally, 83% of people don’t know if their information ended up on the dark web.

(TechOrchard)

32. Barely 32% of organizations demand employees to register their own devices with IT to have security software installed.

According to BYOD stats, 50% of surveyed companies consider registering personal devices and installing IT security software essential. Yet, only 32% introduced it as a requirement for their employees. As a result, not keeping personal devices secure could cause serious issues to the organization.

(Zippia)

33. 51% of workers claim their organization has a specific security policy for mobile device usage in the office.

Over half of all surveyed employees said their companies use a BYOD security policy. Alternatively, BYOD statistics show that 37.9% claimed that their employers don’t have a standing mobile device security policy. Finally, 11.1% weren't sure about the status of this policy in their company.
(Zippia)

34. 58.3% of surveyed employees said that the pandemic pushed the use of personal devices for work.

The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the use of technology in many ways. Similarly, it impacted the way people work and the devices they used during the expansion of remote work. On the other hand, 30.6% of employees don’t think the pandemic affected their use of personal devices for work, while 11.1% believe it decreased their use. Further, for 61.8% of workers, employers didn’t provide any stipend for devices used for work, while 38.2% said they did, BYOD stats reveal.

(Digital Information World)

35. For almost 85% of employees who use work-issued devices, employers paid to secure them.

If the employer doesn’t contribute to the security of the employees’ personal devices used for work, they are less likely to use any measures themselves. This includes both encryptions and passwords. Namely, only 49% of people who use personal devices for work said their employer ensured their security. Those using both work-issued and their own devices implemented security measures. The only things they didn’t use were VPNs or encryption.

(Beyond Identity)

36. By 2023, it’s expected that 30% of IT organizations will extend their BYOD policy to include human augmentation tech.

According to BYOD statistics, one of the latest BYOD trends identified by Gartner is BYOE (Bring Your Own Enhancement). The ever-expanding technology prompted the need for organizations to regulate this along with other already regulated issues. Augmented workers will bring a lot of benefits to the company, including productivity increase. First, however, businesses need to maintain network security.

(BMC)

37. 61% of organizations in the US expect employees to be able to work remotely without providing them with a company phone.

A recent study from Oxford and Samsung revealed some interesting BYOD adoption statistics. Namely, a sample of over 500 IT managers in different industries confirmed that most want their employees to be available remotely without providing a company phone. Only 50% of these organizations used Employer-Provided Device programs. Instead, most relied on BYOD, reimbursing their employees.

(CIO)

38. Employees access approximately 5.2 business apps per day.

For this reason, companies must have options to lock the app remotely if the employee loses the device or someone takes it. Mobile app management is an important system that could help IT to set the rules that will disable the app manually or automatically if failing to connect to the server for a longer time, BYOD stats reveal.

(Resco)

39. With 84%, email, contact management, and calendar are the most popular mobile apps on BYOD.

Following these three, productivity-boosting apps are also popular among employees. However, these increase the risk of data breaches and incidents. That’s why there needs to be a balance between security and productivity.

(Crowd Research)

The Bottom Line

In line with the BYOD statistics, the COVID-19 pandemic has only pushed the growth and strengthened the position of BYOD policy in the workplace. It’s becoming more popular, and it’s on a good way to becoming the core initiative for many organizations. Still, there are some downsides like potential exposure to security risks. However, companies are likely to withstand this challenge with the newest device management systems in place. One thing is sure: employees and organizations that utilize it reap some pretty significant benefits.