Indians buy more phones, talk less

The long-held suspicion of telecom-CFOs has been confirmed - while  Indians may be buying more and more cell-phones, they spend less and  less time talking on them, according to the latest mobile-user survey by market research firm IDC in India.

The survey, which covered 3,140 GSM and CDMA users, found that the average time spent on voice-calls by them has dropped below the one-hour-a-day mark this year.

This has, however, been compensated by increased use of non-voice services such as SMS. The survey was carried out across all the four metros and 10 other major cities in India.

"On an average, a handset is used for less than one hour in a day for voice - including both incoming and outgoing," Shailendra Gupta, User Research Manager at IDC India, said.

"This is probably due to the fact that this year, a higher number of users are from low spending market segments such as workers and students," he added.

The survey also threw up interesting information about the aspiration levels of mobile customers with integrated digital camera proving to be  the most sought-after feature for most users.

Nearly 62 per cent users expressed a desire to upgrade to a camera-enabled phone. High on the list of must-haves for their next phone, besides the camera, are FM-radio and surprisingly, speaker-phone.