Well, we can look at the source:
/ext/standard/array.c
PHP_FUNCTION(count) calls php_count_recursive(), which in turn calls zend_hash_num_elements() for non-recursive array, which is implemented this way:
ZEND_API int zend_hash_num_elements(const HashTable *ht)
{
IS_CONSISTENT(ht);
return ht->nNumOfElements;
}
So you can see, it’s O(1) for $mode = COUNT_NORMAL.