In less than twenty years, mobile phones have gone from being rare and expensive pieces of equipment used primarily by the business elite to a pervasive low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile phones now outnumber land-line telephones, with most adults and many children using mobile phones. In the United States, 50% of children are using mobile phones. In many young adults' households the mobile phone has supplanted land-line telephones. In some areas in developing countries with scarce fixed-line infrastructure, the mobile phone has introduced telephony as such. It has given poor people in isolated communities access to services such as medical and legal advice. However, the mobile phone is also banned in some countries like North Korea.

With high levels of mobile telephone penetration , mobile culture has evolved where the phone is a key social tool with people relying on their mobile phone address book to keep in touch with friends, not least by SMS, and a whole culture of "texting" has developed from this. The commercial market in SMSs is growing. Many phones offer Instant Messenger services to increase the simplicity and ease of texting on phones. Mobile phones in Japan, offering Internet capabilities such as NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, offer text messaging via standard e-mail.

The mobile phone itself has also become a fashion object of totemic value, with users decorating, customizing, and accessorizing their mobile phones to reflect their personality. This has emerged as its own industry. The sale of commercial ringtones exceeded $2.5 billion in 2004.