Global Fax Usage – How Many Fax Machines in the World & Their Environmental Impact
Whilst the fax machine might seem like a thing of the past to many people, you would be surprised to hear that there are still millions of them in use around the globe. How many fax machines are there in the World? According to our calculations at Coupon Chili we believe there to be just over forty six million still in operation. That’s a staggering amount of paper being used which of course has both an environmental affect as well as a financial one.
Free Infographic on Global Fax Usage
It doesn’t need to be that way, as there are now many different Internet Fax solutions available (for example RingCentral). As you can see from the infographic we have produced below, it was possible for us to calculate how many fax machines are in the world, how many faxes are sent each year, as well as the environmental impact of sending a fax.
Please feel free to share this infographic, but if you do please make sure that you credit us accordingly. Beneath the infographic you can find out the exact numbers involved in global fax usage as well as seeing how we managed to come to these numbers and figures including links to all of our sources.
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How Many Fax Machines are There Globally?
The following table shows how many fax machines are in each country around the World. In order to calculate these numbers we found out how many machines there where per head of population and were then able to extrapolate those numbers based on size of country population.
How Many Faxes Are Sent Each Year?
Once we knew how many fax machines were in each country we were then able to calculate how many faxes were sent each year – based on the assumption that each fax machine would send one fax per day as a conservative estimate.
Country | Fax Machine per 1000 People | Population | How Many Faxes Sent a Year | Total Fax Machines |
United States | 55.28 | 314,705,000 | 6,349,865,726 | 17,396,892 |
Japan | 93.31 | 127,520,000 | 4,343,095,288 | 11,898,891 |
Germany | 45.55 | 81,857,000 | 1,360,934,018 | 3,728,586 |
France | 32.44 | 65,350,000 | 773,783,210 | 2,119,954 |
UK | 25.46 | 62,262,000 | 578,594,540 | 1,585,191 |
Italy | 25.45 | 60,849,247 | 565,243,868 | 1,548,613 |
Canada | 24.49 | 34,967,800 | 312,571,919 | 856,361 |
Spain | 14.56 | 46,163,116 | 245,329,264 | 672,135 |
Australia | 29.37 | 22,802,044 | 244,439,052 | 669,696 |
China | 0.44 | 1,347,350,000 | 216,384,410 | 592,834 |
Netherlands | 31.43 | 16,751,323 | 192,170,340 | 526,494 |
Sweden | 41.63 | 9,532,634 | 144,847,897 | 396,844 |
Brazil | 1.97 | 193,946,886 | 139,457,508 | 382,075 |
Mexico | 2.23 | 112,336,538 | 91,436,325 | 250,510 |
Austria | 28.91 | 8,452,835 | 89,195,583 | 244,371 |
Denmark | 39.23 | 5,587,085 | 80,001,191 | 219,181 |
Switzerland | 24.64 | 8,000,001 | 71,948,809 | 197,120 |
Norway | 36.04 | 5,045,500 | 66,371,534 | 181,840 |
Belgium | 16 | 10,839,905 | 63,305,045 | 173,438 |
Finland | 29.55 | 5,423,740 | 58,499,104 | 160,272 |
Saudi Arabia | 5.27 | 28,376,355 | 54,583,338 | 149,543 |
Pakistan | 0.8 | 181,128,000 | 52,889,376 | 144,902 |
Israel | 18.22 | 7,928,500 | 52,726,904 | 144,457 |
Colombia | 2.9 | 46,770,000 | 49,506,045 | 135,633 |
United Arab Emirates | 16.12 | 8,264,070 | 48,624,135 | 133,217 |
Malaysia | 4 | 29,537,000 | 43,124,020 | 118,148 |
Turkey | 1.47 | 74,724,269 | 40,093,307 | 109,845 |
Singapore | 21.08 | 5,183,700 | 39,884,425 | 109,272 |
South Africa | 2.11 | 51,770,560 | 39,871,097 | 109,236 |
Ireland | 23.65 | 4,588,252 | 39,606,938 | 108,512 |
Thailand | 1.35 | 65,479,453 | 32,265,000 | 88,397 |
Kuwait | 20.55 | 3,582,054 | 26,868,092 | 73,611 |
Czech Republic | 6.68 | 10,507,566 | 25,619,547 | 70,191 |
Indonesia | 0.29 | 237,641,326 | 25,154,334 | 68,916 |
New Zealand | 14.03 | 4,444,780 | 22,761,496 | 62,360 |
India | 0.05 | 1,210,193,422 | 22,086,030 | 60,510 |
Argentina | 1.37 | 40,117,096 | 20,060,554 | 54,960 |
Hungary | 4.99 | 9,957,731 | 18,136,513 | 49,689 |
Russia | 0.34 | 143,228,300 | 17,774,632 | 48,698 |
Portugal | 4.47 | 10,561,614 | 17,231,801 | 47,210 |
Philippines | 0.51 | 92,337,852 | 17,188,691 | 47,092 |
Slovakia | 7.42 | 5,445,324 | 14,747,571 | 40,404 |
Venezuela | 1.32 | 28,946,101 | 13,946,231 | 38,209 |
Jordan | 5.95 | 6,365,800 | 13,824,926 | 37,877 |
Poland | 0.97 | 38,538,447 | 13,644,537 | 37,382 |
Ecuador | 2.53 | 14,483,499 | 13,374,787 | 36,643 |
Croatia | 7.08 | 4,290,612 | 11,087,800 | 30,378 |
Tunisia | 2.43 | 10,673,800 | 9,467,127 | 25,937 |
Chile | 1.56 | 16,572,475 | 9,436,367 | 25,853 |
Greece | 2.27 | 10,787,690 | 8,938,141 | 24,488 |
Qatar | 13.41 | 1,699,435 | 8,318,140 | 22,789 |
Mauritius | 16.54 | 1,286,051 | 7,764,018 | 21,271 |
Syria | 0.7 | 21,819,000 | 5,574,755 | 15,273 |
Morocco | 0.43 | 32,718,800 | 5,135,216 | 14,069 |
Slovenia | 6.65 | 2,061,170 | 5,002,975 | 13,707 |
Romania | 0.71 | 19,042,936 | 4,934,977 | 13,520 |
Vietnam | 0.15 | 87,840,000 | 4,809,240 | 13,176 |
Togo | 1.96 | 6,191,155 | 4,429,152 | 12,135 |
Bahrain | 9.71 | 1,234,571 | 4,375,505 | 11,988 |
Luxembourg | 23.2 | 511,800 | 4,333,922 | 11,874 |
Sri Lanka | 0.55 | 20,277,597 | 4,070,728 | 11,153 |
Guatemala | 0.69 | 14,713,763 | 3,705,661 | 10,152 |
Macau | 17.22 | 568,700 | 3,574,450 | 9,793 |
Bulgaria | 1.32 | 7,364,570 | 3,548,250 | 9,721 |
Sudan | 0.31 | 30,894,000 | 3,495,656 | 9,577 |
Peru | 0.31 | 30,135,875 | 3,409,874 | 9,342 |
Uruguay | 2.81 | 3,286,314 | 3,370,608 | 9,235 |
Cyprus | 10.67 | 838,897 | 3,267,126 | 8,951 |
Algeria | 0.2 | 37,100,000 | 2,708,300 | 7,420 |
Ghana | 0.26 | 24,658,823 | 2,340,122 | 6,411 |
Estonia | 4.46 | 1,294,236 | 2,106,887 | 5,772 |
Mozambique | 0.21 | 23,700,715 | 1,816,660 | 4,977 |
Iceland | 15.37 | 320,060 | 1,795,553 | 4,919 |
Lebanon | 1.11 | 4,292,000 | 1,738,904 | 4,764 |
Kenya | 0.12 | 38,610,097 | 1,691,122 | 4,633 |
Malta | 11.04 | 417,617 | 1,682,829 | 4,610 |
Oman | 1.54 | 2,773,479 | 1,558,973 | 4,271 |
Uganda | 0.12 | 32,939,800 | 1,442,763 | 3,953 |
Zimbabwe | 0.29 | 13,014,000 | 1,377,532 | 3,774 |
Ukraine | 0.08 | 45,560,272 | 1,330,360 | 3,645 |
Lithuania | 1.14 | 3,180,394 | 1,323,362 | 3,626 |
Mongolia | 1.32 | 2,736,800 | 1,318,590 | 3,613 |
Botswana | 1.73 | 2,024,904 | 1,278,626 | 3,503 |
Mauritania | 0.92 | 3,378,254 | 1,134,418 | 3,108 |
Tanzania | 0.07 | 43,188,000 | 1,103,453 | 3,023 |
Maldives | 8.15 | 317,280 | 943,829 | 2,586 |
Cambodia | 0.15 | 14,478,000 | 792,671 | 2,172 |
Brunei | 5.38 | 393,162 | 772,052 | 2,115 |
Trinidad & Tobago | 1.56 | 1,317,714 | 750,306 | 2,056 |
Guinea | 0.18 | 10,824,200 | 711,150 | 1,948 |
Jamaica | 0.65 | 2,709,300 | 642,781 | 1,761 |
Barbados | 6.1 | 274,200 | 610,506 | 1,673 |
Faroe Islands | 29.52 | 48,459 | 522,136 | 1,431 |
Gambia, The | 0.76 | 1,825,000 | 506,255 | 1,387 |
Greenland | 20.87 | 56,749 | 432,288 | 1,184 |
Benin | 0.12 | 9,352,000 | 409,618 | 1,122 |
Belize | 2.28 | 312,971 | 260,454 | 714 |
Niger | 0.04 | 16,274,738 | 237,611 | 651 |
Latvia | 0.31 | 2,070,371 | 234,262 | 642 |
Gabon | 0.41 | 1,564,000 | 234,053 | 641 |
Moldova | 0.12 | 3,559,500 | 155,906 | 427 |
Djibouti | 0.24 | 818,159 | 71,671 | 196 |
Comoros | 0.16 | 669,300 | 39,087 | 107 |
TOTALS | 16,921,193,736 | 46,359,435 |
The Environmental Impact of Sending Faxes
When doing our calculations on global faxes sent we could not believe just how many trees were being cut down each year. The facts are very frightening. If one average sized tree can produce over 8,000 sheets of paper that means that over 2 million trees are being cut down each year. To put that into perspective which is easier to visualize, that is a similar size to nearly 5,000 football fields!
Assumptions & Facts
Here are some of the assumptions and additional calculations we performed in order to product the global fax usage infographic.
- Each fax machine sends 1 fax per day
- 313 sheets of paper stack up to 1 inch
- There are 63,360 inches in a mile
- So 19,831,680 sheets of paper can be stacked 1 mile high
- Therefore global faxes sent would equal 853 miles high
- 1 tree can produce 8,333.3 sheets of paper
- Therefore we use 2,030,551 trees each year when sending faxes
- There are 75,000 trees per square kilometer
- Therefore 2 million trees are used each year by fax machines
- Therefore 26.6 square kilometers of trees are used (which is equal to 10.3 square miles)
- How many football fields in a square mile = 484 fields
- Therefore 4,840 football fields of trees are cut down each year due to faxes
- 1 ink cartridge can print 200 pages
Sources
In order to arrive at the numbers to base our calculations on when figuring out how many fax machines there are globally, how much paper is used to send faxes, and how many faxes are sent each year, we used the following sources.
Fax Machines by Country
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_fax_mac-media-fax-machines
List of Countries by Population
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
How Many Trees are Used to Make Sheets of Paper
http://conservatree.org/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml
How Many Trees are Cut Down Every Year
http://understory.ran.org/2008/04/22/how-many-trees-are-cut-down-every-year/
How Many Football Fields Are There in 1 Square Mile
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-football-fields-can-fit-into-a-square-mile
Conclusion – Use Internet Fax Like RingCentral
By using Internet-based fax services such as RingCentral Fax you can lessen the environmental impact of your office as well as saving costs. For more information on this product please read our RingCentral Fax review – we also have a page where you can find the latest RingCentral Referral Codes which will help you to save money when you sign-up to their Internet fax services.