Photo: Handout

INDIANS LOVE IT: Mobile phones are popular but costlier services like Net phone are shunned. Women are champion text messagers.

Bangalore: Two global surveys reveal lifestyle of world's most `mobile' population. Indians love SMS, but ignore pricey services like phone Internet. They spend an average of Rs 5000 on a mobile phone handset -- but forgot over 30,000 phones in the last six months, in Mumbai taxis alone We buy six million mobile phones every month -- making us one of the world's fastest- growing cell phone markets -- 176 million-strong as of last month.

The average amount spent on a handset, which is around Rs. 5,000, represents nearly half a month's salary for most of us in India, while for Britishers, it amounts to just 5%.

Our favourite brands are Nokia and Samsung in that order and this is same as the global preference. But Panasonic is number three here, with Sony Ericsson and Motorola, the next two in the desi popularity stakes, while internationally Motorola is number three followed by Sony Ericsson and LG.

We love short messaging services, indeed 100 per cent of phone users do SMS-ing, with women (83 %) sending more daily text messages than men (65 %). But when it comes to extra-charge services like Internet, half of us, with these feature on our phones, say: `No thank you -- too costly or too slow.' In this, we are no different from the rest of the world. But unlike most users abroad, we like to live dangerously: Indians are among the least concerned (59 %) about the possible health hazards of mobile phone usage... a nonchalance that is exceeded only in China.

These are some of the interesting findings in the India section of a recent global survey of mobile phone trends, commissioned by Stockholm, Sweden- based SmartTrust, a leading provider of mobile device management solutions. The survey conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres , covered 6,700 mobile consumers in 15 countries, 404 of them in India.

The full report is available for corporate users who register at the www.smarttrust.com for a free download.

In another survey , mobile security player Pointsec found that Mumbaites are second only to Londoners in forgetfullness — when it comes to their mobile phones. In the last six months they forgot 32,970 phones in Mumbai taxis — this is just the numbers reported as lost. Amnesiac London-based phone owners topped this number - with 54872 phones lost. Sydney, Stockholm, San Francisco, Washington, Munich, Helsinki, Berlin and Oslo all fared better.

But when it came to lost pocket PCs and laptops, India is nowhere in the Top Ten.

London is the mother city for the memory-challenged. It leads the world in lost pocket PCs ( 4,718) and laptops ( 3,179). (Only 349 laptops were left behind in Mumbai taxis)

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