Countifs for data starting with a certain number
Solution 1:
Wildcards only work in COUNTIF
function when the values are text formatted (not numeric). Try using SUMPRODUCT
like this:
=SUMPRODUCT((LEFT(range)="5")+0)
or assuming all numbers in your range have 8 digits as per your example you could use COUNTIFS
like this:
=COUNTIFS(range,">=50000000",range,"<=59999999")
for large ranges the COUNTIFS
version is probably faster