Eye-opener: 1-in-3 urbanites checks phone on waking up

Do you have the habit of looking at the phone, checking on text messages and social media notifications as soon as you get up?

And, are you among those who steals a glimpse of the phone screen before going to sleep? You are not alone. Nearly one-third of smart phone users in urban areas have that habit.

A Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey says 29 per cent of the urbanites in India take a look at their phones soon after getting up. And, within five minutes after getting up 61 per cent of them would have checked on the phones to update themselves.

The survey, conducted in 31 countries, covered 53,000 smart phone users in the age group of 18-54 years. the sample included 2,015 respondents from India.

What do they check for first on their phones? Social media networks and instant messaging (IM) apps top the list with 24 per cent and 23 per cent of the respondents going for them first. News and games fare very badly with only three per cent each preferring to opt for them.

Hemant M Joshi, Partner and TMT (Technology, Media, Telecom) leader on the Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey, broke up the survey results for India. He said that the survey was conducted in May-June, 2016. Admitting that the survey was biased to smart phone users in urban areas, he said that the results reflected the consumer behaviour in that space. IM emerged as the top medium for communication with 74 per cent of the respondents using it for communication. This was followed by social networks (64 per cent) and e-mails (63 per cent).

Reminding that the survey was conducted before the demonetisation drive, he said that people had begun to use their mobiles to pay for services, buy things or transfer of funds.

“As many as 54 per cent of the respondents had paid a utility bill in three months prior to the survey (May-June) period. About 38 per cent of them used mobiles for transfer of money within the country,” he pointed out. One major reason for people shying away from using their mobiles for carrying out financial transactions is the security aspect. “About 29 per cent of the respondents thought that it is not secure enough (to go for financial transactions),” he said.

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