Microsoft India, Synovate SmartPhone Survey:Indians are Voyeurs

Microsoft commissioned a Mobility Survey in APAC in conjunction with Synovate to gauge people’s perceptions, attitudes about smart phones and how they put their phones to use in their everyday lives.The survey throws up some fascinating revelations and definitely makes for an interesting read. The How Mobile Are You survey polled nearly 2,500 respondents (513 in India) in five countries across Asia. Here are some interesting insights

• Indians have the highest incidence of shooting voyeuristic pictures/photos with their mobile phone at 33%. Japan and Taiwan have the lowest at 6% and 7% respectively.
  
• 32% Indians believe that giving out mobile phone details on social networking sites and forums is okay
  
• Women, across countries, are more likely to check their husband’s mobile phone for sms/caller lists than men. While Chinese women ranked the highest at 61%, Indian women weren’t far behind at 54%.
  
• Asians are extremely open to using mobile phones to manage their personal relationships. In fact, in taking relationships to the next level, the Chinese (58%) and Indians (54%) are most likely to find it acceptable for marriage proposals to occur over their mobile phones.
  
• Mobile advertising is clearly gaining acceptance with 57% of Indians polled agreeing that mobile advertising is good if the information is relevant to their needs and current location.
  
• 65% Indians consider the brand of the phone to be the most important factor while purchasing phones. Music quality and storage capacity rank next. (57%). Only 7% tend to buy their mobile phones basis recommendations at the shop outlet they buy their phones from.
  
• 68% of Indian parents who have children between the ages of 7 – 15 years buy their children their first new phones while only 20% hand down their used phones to their kids. 
  
• Clicking pictures on mobile phones is a rather popular activity across countries according to the survey. 44% Indians take camera quality into consideration while purchasing phones. 39% Indians also take into account the software of the phone than the mere physical features.
  

This survey has been the basis of Microsoft's initiative to go into the vastly untapped mobile social space on windows mobile whether they succeed or not is going to be another story.The Microsoft PR team mailed me to point out 

After pioneering the mobile touch trend two years ago, Windows Mobile is today bringing to reality the next frontier – mobile social! Be it capturing and sharing special moments with your network in a single click through Windows Live on Windows Mobile  or connecting with your social network with cool, free apps (there’s something for everyone ). Two of my favorites are FriendMobilizer  that puts Facebook into the palm of your hand and PockeTwit  which, as the name suggests, lets you Twitter on the go!

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