Count how many times a number appears

Son said:

i have cells with data in the following form:

Cell Contents
A1 = 33
A2 = 334
A3 = 344
B1 = 444

is there a way that i could count how many times the number 4 and the number 3 is repeated in the whole area (eg. number 4 appears 6 times, number 3 appears 5 times)?

i'm looking forward to your thoughts on this.

Click to expand...

If we take A1:B3 as the range of interest and let E1 house 3 and E2 4...

F1, copy down:

=SUMPRODUCT(LEN($A$1:$B$3)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE($A$1:$B$3,E1,"")))

hey, it works!!! Thank you!!!
it's amazing!
i can't figure out how it works, though.
i mean, i know a bit about all the three functions, but i am still not sure how the substitute one works and why i still get the correct result...
anyway, it's all working perfectly.
Once again, i confirm that excel is such a powerful tool, which never ceases to amaze me.