Americans spent over 2.4 trillion minutes talking on wireless phones in 2024, nearly 30 billion minutes more than the year before (CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights). The people making those calls have almost fully abandoned the landline: 78.7% of U.S. adults now live in wireless-only households, and just 0.9% live with a landline alone (CDC, National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2024). Yet the way calls are received has transformed: 86% of calls from unknown numbers go unanswered (Hiya, State of the Call 2026), and 25% of 18-34 year olds say they never answer the phone at all (Uswitch, 2024). This analysis consolidates data from CTIA, the CDC, Hiya, Invoca, and 5 other primary sources to map how people actually use voice calls in 2026.
TL;DR
- Americans logged over 2.4 trillion wireless voice minutes in 2024, up nearly 30 billion year over year (CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights).
- 86% of calls from unknown numbers go unanswered (Hiya, State of the Call 2026).
- 78.7% of U.S. adults live in wireless-only households; landline-only households are down to 0.9% (CDC NHIS, July-December 2024).
- Americans received 52.8 billion robocalls in 2024, about 13.3 per person in December alone (YouMail Robocall Index).
- 25% of 18-34 year olds never answer the phone, and about 70% prefer a text to a call (Uswitch, 2024).
- 42% of Gen Z and millennial workers do not answer phone calls, and 58% script or rehearse conversations first (RiseGuide, via Business Insider, June 2026).
- 41% of consumers prefer calling when a high-stakes purchase goes wrong, the top help channel across every generation (Invoca, 2026).
- 96% of consumers say human connection matters during high-stakes purchases (Invoca, 2026).
- 1 in 3 consumers across six countries report receiving an AI deepfake voice call, with average fraud losses above 800 dollars per victim (Hiya, State of the Call 2026).
- UK mobile call minutes fell 7.7% year over year to 38.6 billion in Q4 2024 (Ofcom, via Uswitch).
1. Call Volume: Americans Still Talk in the Trillions
The phone call is supposed to be dying, but the network data says otherwise. CTIA’s 2025 Annual Survey Highlights shows wireless voice minutes holding above 2.4 trillion for the second consecutive year, and actually growing. Americans used nearly 30 billion more voice minutes in 2024 than in 2023, alongside 42 billion more text messages. Spread across 579 million wireless connections, 2.4 trillion minutes works out to roughly 11 minutes of talk time per connection per day. Voice is not shrinking; it is plateauing at an enormous scale while data use explodes around it.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. wireless voice minutes (2024) | over 2.4 trillion | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| Year-over-year change in voice minutes | +~30 billion | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| U.S. wireless voice minutes (2023) | more than 2.4 trillion | CTIA, 2024 Annual Survey Highlights |
| SMS and MMS messages exchanged (2024) | nearly 2.2 trillion (+42B) | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| Messages per second (2023) | more than 67,000 | CTIA, 2024 Annual Survey Highlights |
| U.S. wireless connections (2024) | 579 million (1.7 per person) | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| Wireless data used (2024) | 132.5 trillion MB (+32T, largest jump ever) | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
Note: CTIA’s minutes figure counts carrier voice only. Calls placed over Wi-Fi apps, from WhatsApp to game voice chat, sit on top of these totals, so total voice conversation time is understated.
2. The Landline Is Down to a Rounding Error
The National Health Interview Survey has tracked “wireless substitution” since 2003, and the endgame is now visible. The CDC’s July-December 2024 estimates, based on interviews with 15,616 adults, show wireless-only living climbing 2.7 percentage points in a single year. Only 0.9% of U.S. adults live in a household that relies on a landline alone, while 78.7% live in households with no landline at all. The generational conveyor belt makes the outcome mechanical: nearly 9 in 10 adults aged 25-44 are already wireless-only, and each year the 65+ group, the last landline stronghold at 57.9% wireless-only, looks more like the cohorts below it.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. adults in wireless-only households (Jul-Dec 2024) | 78.7% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| U.S. children in wireless-only households | 86.9% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Adults in landline-only households | 0.9% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Households keeping landline plus wireless | 19.8% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Wireless-only adults, ages 25-29 | 88.9% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Wireless-only adults, ages 65+ | 57.9% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Year-over-year change in wireless-only adults | +2.7 points (76.0% to 78.7%) | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
| Adults in phoneless households | 0.5% | CDC, NHIS Wireless Substitution |
Context: the landlines that survive are increasingly virtual. Business desk phones and even “home phone” service have largely moved to internet telephony, a shift quantified in our VoIP and UCaaS statistics.
3. The Answer-Rate Collapse: Nobody Picks Up for Unknown Numbers
Call volume is stable, but answering behavior has broken. Hiya’s State of the Call 2026, a survey of more than 12,000 consumers across six countries, quantifies the trust collapse: 86% of calls from unknown numbers go unanswered. The cause is two decades of spam conditioning. Hiya flagged 11.3 billion suspected spam calls in Q4 2024 alone, about 123 million unwanted calls per day, and the YouMail Robocall Index counted 52.8 billion U.S. robocalls across 2024. The modest 4.2% annual decline in robocalls has not rebuilt trust: nearly half of consumers told Hiya spam got worse over the past year, not better.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Calls from unknown numbers that go unanswered | 86% | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| Suspected spam calls flagged worldwide (Q4 2024) | 11.3 billion | Hiya, Global Call Threat Report Q4 2024 |
| Unwanted calls per day (Q4 2024) | ~123 million | Hiya, Global Call Threat Report Q4 2024 |
| U.S. robocalls (2024) | 52.8 billion | YouMail Robocall Index |
| U.S. robocalls, year-over-year change | -4.2% (from 55.1B in 2023) | YouMail Robocall Index |
| Robocalls per person (December 2024) | ~13.3 | YouMail Robocall Index |
| U.S. robocalls (January 2025) | 4.7 billion (+8.7% MoM) | YouMail Robocall Index |
| Consumers who say spam increased in the past year | nearly half | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
Context: the full robocall picture, including STIR/SHAKEN enforcement and category breakdowns, is in our robocall statistics.
4. AI Voice Fraud Raises the Stakes
The unknown-number problem is no longer just annoyance; it is a fraud channel getting an AI upgrade. Hiya’s State of the Call 2026 found that voice cloning scams have moved from hypothetical to mainstream. 1 in 3 consumers across six countries report receiving an AI deepfake voice call, and average losses among phone fraud victims exceed 800 dollars. Hiya’s U.S. press materials put deepfake exposure at 1 in 4 Americans. Consumers have noticed who is winning: respondents said scammers are outpacing mobile operator protections by a 2-to-1 margin, and a majority now expect their carrier to cover some or all of the money lost to phone scams.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers who received an AI deepfake voice call | 1 in 3 (six countries) | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| Americans who received an AI deepfake voice call | 1 in 4 | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 press materials |
| Average financial loss per phone fraud victim | over $800 | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| Consumers who say scammers are beating operator protections | 2-to-1 margin | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| Consumers expecting carriers to cover scam losses | majority | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
Context: voice phishing deserves its own deep dive; see our vishing statistics for attack volumes, loss data, and the corporate angle.
5. Phone Anxiety: The Generational Split Is Real
Survey after survey confirms that for people under 35, the ringing phone reads as an intrusion. A 2024 Uswitch survey of 2,000 UK adults found 25% of 18-34 year olds never answer the phone, preferring to ignore the call, reply by text, or look the number up online. More than half of 18-34 year olds assume an unexpected call means bad news. The pattern follows them to work: a June 2026 RiseGuide survey of 2,000 Gen Z and millennial workers found 42% do not answer calls, 58% rehearse or script conversations before dialing, and 78% of habitual avoiders admit the habit has cost them earnings or opportunities. The response is starting to look institutional: Nottingham College in the UK now runs a “Five Steps to Telephone Confidence” course after advisors watched students freeze in phone interviews (Newsweek, 2026).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 18-34 year olds who never answer the phone | 25% | Uswitch survey, via BBC (2024) |
| 18-34 year olds who prefer a text to a call | ~70% | Uswitch survey (2024) |
| 18-34 year olds who prefer voice notes | 37% (vs 1% of 35-54s) | Uswitch survey (2024) |
| 18-34 year olds who assume unexpected calls are bad news | more than 50% | Uswitch survey (2024) |
| Gen Z/millennial workers who do not answer calls | 42% | RiseGuide, via Business Insider (2026) |
| Young workers who script or rehearse calls first | 58% | RiseGuide, via Business Insider (2026) |
| Call avoiders reporting lost earnings or opportunities | 78% | RiseGuide, via Business Insider (2026) |
| Young workers ranking spontaneous calls as most stressful communication | 1 in 10 | RiseGuide, via Business Insider (2026) |
Context: the 37% voice-note preference shows younger users are not rejecting voice itself, just the live, unscheduled version of it. Our voice messaging statistics track that async shift in detail.
6. Business Calls: The Channel People Still Trust With Money
Consumers screen personal calls ruthlessly, then pick up the phone the moment real money is on the line. Invoca’s 2026 B2C Buyer Experience Report, fielded in May 2026 across 1,356 US and UK consumers making high-stakes purchases (generally 500 dollars and up), found calling is the number one help channel in every generation. 96% of consumers say human connection is important during a high-stakes purchase, and 59% choose a human over AI when both are equally available. The calling preference has held between 32% and 44% since 2022, and 26% of buyers called simply because the information they needed was not available online.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers who prefer calling for purchase-problem help | 41% (#1 channel, all generations) | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Calling preference trend | 32% (2022), 44% (2025), 41% (2026) | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Called because information was not online | 26% | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Prefer a human over AI when both available | 59% | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Say human connection matters in high-stakes purchases | 96% | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Boomers who prefer human representatives | 85% | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 |
| Preferred a human representative to AI (2025 wave) | 67% | Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Industry Report 2025 |
Context: what happens after those calls connect, from handle times to AI deflection rates, is covered in our call center industry statistics.
7. From Voice-First to Data-First Phones
Zoom out and the phone call’s role has inverted in fifteen years. In 2011, Pew Research found 53% of texting adults still preferred a voice call to a text; today the device itself is a data terminal that happens to make calls. Smartphone ownership hit 91% of U.S. adults in 2025, per Pew’s Mobile Fact Sheet, and CTIA reports wireless data demand growing roughly 35% per year for three straight years while voice grows about 1%. The UK shows what a genuine voice decline looks like: mobile-originated call minutes fell 7.7% year over year in Q4 2024, and annual SMS volume collapsed from over 100 billion to under 28 billion in a decade as messaging moved to apps (Ofcom data, via Uswitch).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. adults who own a smartphone (2025) | 91% | Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet |
| U.S. adults who own a cellphone of any kind | 98% | Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet |
| Smartphone ownership growth | 35% (2011) to 91% (2025) | Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet |
| U.S. adults preferring calls over texts (2011 baseline) | 53% vs 31% | Pew Research Center, 2011 |
| UK mobile-originated call minutes (Q4 2024) | 38.6 billion (-7.7% YoY) | Ofcom, via Uswitch |
| UK annual SMS volume, 2015 vs 2024 | 100+ billion to under 28 billion | Ofcom, via Uswitch |
| 5G share of U.S. wireless connections (2024) | 45% (259M devices) | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
Note: the U.S. voice plateau versus the UK voice decline is a real divergence in the data, not a measurement artifact; U.S. carrier minutes include the large enterprise and toll-free calling base that UK mobile-originated figures exclude.
Summary: Phone Calls by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. wireless voice minutes (2024) | over 2.4 trillion | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| Voice minutes added year over year | ~30 billion | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| SMS/MMS messages exchanged (2024) | nearly 2.2 trillion | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| U.S. wireless connections | 579 million (1.7 per person) | CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights |
| Adults in wireless-only households | 78.7% | CDC, NHIS (Jul-Dec 2024) |
| Adults in landline-only households | 0.9% | CDC, NHIS (Jul-Dec 2024) |
| Children in wireless-only households | 86.9% | CDC, NHIS (Jul-Dec 2024) |
| Wireless-only adults, 65+ | 57.9% | CDC, NHIS (Jul-Dec 2024) |
| Unknown calls that go unanswered | 86% | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| U.S. robocalls (2024) | 52.8 billion (-4.2%) | YouMail Robocall Index |
| Robocalls per person (Dec 2024) | ~13.3 | YouMail Robocall Index |
| Spam calls flagged worldwide (Q4 2024) | 11.3 billion | Hiya, Global Call Threat Report |
| Consumers reporting AI deepfake calls | 1 in 3 | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| Average loss per phone fraud victim | over $800 | Hiya, State of the Call 2026 |
| 18-34s who never answer the phone | 25% | Uswitch (2024) |
| 18-34s preferring text to a call | ~70% | Uswitch (2024) |
| Young workers who script calls in advance | 58% | RiseGuide, via Business Insider (2026) |
| Consumers preferring calls for purchase help | 41% (#1 channel) | Invoca (2026) |
| Say human connection matters in high-stakes purchases | 96% | Invoca (2026) |
| U.S. smartphone ownership | 91% | Pew Research Center (2025) |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by aggregating figures directly from primary reports, government surveys, and named research releases published in 2024-2026, cross-referencing overlapping metrics across two or more sources and flagging any figure older than 2024 (the 2011 Pew preference data appears strictly as a historical baseline).
- CTIA, 2025 Annual Survey Highlights (2024 data)
- CTIA, 2024 Annual Survey Highlights (2023 data)
- CDC / NCHS, Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2024 (15,616 adults, 4,138 children)
- Hiya, State of the Call 2026 (12,000+ consumers, six countries, March 2026)
- Hiya, Global Call Threat Report Q4 2024
- YouMail Robocall Index (2024 annual and monthly data)
- Uswitch phone anxiety survey (2,000 UK adults, April 2024), via BBC News
- Uswitch, UK Mobile Phone Statistics (incorporating Ofcom market data)
- Newsweek, Gen Z’s Telephobia Problem (2026)
- RiseGuide survey of 2,000 Gen Z and millennial workers, via Business Insider (June 2026)
- Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026 (1,356 US/UK consumers, May 2026)
- Invoca, B2C Buyer Experience Industry Report 2025
- Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet (survey Feb-June 2025)
- Pew Research Center, Americans and Text Messaging (2011, historical baseline)
Data watch: CTIA publishes its Annual Survey Highlights each year around mid-year, so 2025-data figures are expected in the second half of 2026; the CDC releases NHIS wireless substitution estimates twice a year; Hiya publishes the State of the Call each first quarter plus quarterly Global Call Threat Reports; YouMail updates the Robocall Index monthly; Invoca refreshes its buyer experience research annually; and Pew Research Center updates its Mobile Fact Sheet on an ongoing basis.
Last updated: July 20, 2026. We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.