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Count numbers third digit equals 3

Excel formula: Count numbers third digit equals 3
Generic formula 

To count numbers where the third digit equals 3, you can use a formula based on the SUMPRODUCT and MID functions. In the example shown, the formula in E5 is:


How this formula works

To get the third character from a string in A1, you can use the MID function like this:


The first argument is a cell reference, the second argument specifies the start number, and the third argument indicates number of characters.

If you give the MID function a range of cells for the first argument, you'll get back an array of results. In the example shown, this expression:


returns an array like this:


This array contains the third digit from each cell in the range B5:B12. Notice the MID function has automatically converted numeric values in the range to text strings and returned the third character as a text value.

When we compare this array using ="3", we get an array like this:


We use the double negative to coerce the TRUE and FALSE values to 1 and zero respectively, which returns:


Finally, with only one array to work with, the SUMPRODUCT function sums the items in the array and returns the total, 3.

Dave Bruns

Excel Formula Training
