We can filter
the NA elements in 'col_2' and then do a count
of 'col_1'
mydf %>%
filter(!is.na(col_2)) %>%
count(col_1)
# A tibble: 2 x 2
# col_1 n
# <fctr> <int>
#1 A 1
#2 B 2
or using data.table
library(data.table)
setDT(mydf)[, .(non_na_count = sum(!is.na(col_2))), col_1]
Or with aggregate
from base R
aggregate(cbind(col_2 = !is.na(col_2))~col_1, mydf, sum)
# col_1 col_2
#1 A 1
#2 B 2
Or using table
table(mydf$col_1[!is.na(mydf$col_2)])