Mobile phone usage report 2011: The things you do

02 May 2011
A few weeks back we asked some questions to find out how you, our readers, are using your phone. Now we are back with the answers and they have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Did you ever wonder what kind of phone usage is normal? We seem to have a pretty good idea...

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • MTa
  • 03 May 2011

Very informative, thank you, guys.

    • D
    • DK
    • Ere
    • 03 May 2011

    Excellent stuff!

    Particularly surprised by Europeans, I hope it's not an agieng issue given young populations in some continents.

    To some extent this could be biased by sample used, Geeks, but still pretty representative of daily habits.

    Why are women less inclined to using gadgets? Maybe carry out a survey around this coz it doesn't really make sense.

    Keep it up GSMArena.com.

      • D
      • AnonD-2663
      • 2CR
      • 03 May 2011

      Companies such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Apple already conduct their own extensive research, which shows that the most important features on a phone are reliability and a long battery life.
      Unfortunately your sampling population is very unreliable. It's skewed toward readers of this site

        • D
        • AnonD-1176
        • PEd
        • 03 May 2011

        AnonD-5950, 03 May 2011Of coarse Video call... Video call is very expensive to us... moreVideo calling is not expensive.....

        In my carrier it costs the same as a voice call.

          • E
          • European
          • M8T
          • 03 May 2011

          BUC, 03 May 2011Excellent Poll. By the way, very surprised that Europea... more+1 for the very nice survey!

          :) Well, Europeans definitely have at least 1 PNA, several PCs/Laptops at home and at work and do not like to suffer with poorly & half way implemented features on the "smartphones" ;) Honestly, after using such toys for years, I'm starting to think of switching back to a regular feature phone. And I'm not 40+

            • s
            • ssj
            • PEq
            • 03 May 2011

            Well arranged article & very much informative. It's nice to know how exactly people use their cellphones in a daily basis.
            Thank you GSMArena. :-)
            Keep up the good work.

              • D
              • AnonD-2117
              • 7tD
              • 03 May 2011

              excellent article..........there should also have been a poll for 'BROWSING GSMARENA.COM' (In your phone) and i would have answered DAILY......... ;)

                • A
                • Amir
                • dQx
                • 03 May 2011

                thank you gsmarena. very useful for me

                  • n
                  • niknok
                  • uHV
                  • 03 May 2011

                  I got dizzy reading the numbers, I read the whole article for 30 minutes plus.=) I'm asian and yeah, I like to play games on my phone or my gf's iphone. Thank you gsmarena, another nice article from you guys. Keep it up.

                    • h
                    • hassook
                    • mT$
                    • 03 May 2011

                    Thank you for the wonderful survey and inspiration, i am eager to see the results after a few years from now.

                    on a side note when i did the survey i didnt know what tethering means so that might influence the results if more are like me ;).

                      • B
                      • BUC
                      • 4fL
                      • 03 May 2011

                      Excellent Poll.

                      By the way, very surprised that Europeans seem to be less likely to use just about anything a smartphone has to offer.

                      I guess they are better off with dumb phones, despite the usefulness of language tools, mapping, poi, etc that specially them could put to use.

                      As for me, while I wait for my Atrix to arrive, I "would if I could" a lot of these, and use daily the rest of them...

                        • S
                        • SRS
                        • 4cS
                        • 03 May 2011

                        How do they track all these stats.

                          • D
                          • AnonD-5950
                          • tZj
                          • 03 May 2011

                          Of coarse Video call...
                          Video call is very expensive to use.. Some prefer Facetime and skype onto their mobile..
                          They are very cheap and sometimes free for Facetime only...
                          But the problem, Facetime is only enable for Apple products only... Android, Symbian, BB, and all other device still depends on the carrier it self!
                          For android user, They can't wait for the Google Talk facetime enable..

                            • b
                            • buffon
                            • 8Kp
                            • 03 May 2011

                            one word, fantastic.

                              • D
                              • AnonD-5666
                              • vGM
                              • 03 May 2011

                              wonderful article. thought the sample here is people like us, it gives a good idea about the usage pattern. companies can prioritize features in their phones by taking account of such studies. way to go gsmarena!!!

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • 0@1
                                • 03 May 2011

                                excellent report GSMArena, very detailed and professional.

                                  • D
                                  • AnonD-538
                                  • w0Q
                                  • 03 May 2011

                                  Based on this (excellent) article I think it is safe to say that there is definitely still a market for those so-called "dumb phones". Apparently not everyone needs a microwave oven and what-have-you on their mobile. Calling and SMS still rules.

                                    • h
                                    • hahahasan
                                    • 3am
                                    • 03 May 2011

                                    wow great work gsmarena I can tell this wasn't easy to put together and just wow so informative and thorough, its stuff like this that makes you guys my number 1 go to site for everything mobile.

                                      • V
                                      • VynZ
                                      • 3xh
                                      • 03 May 2011

                                      " we expected results more in 95%+ range, so much so that we even considered leaving it out of the poll. Glad we didn’t, because we now see that not everyone use their phone as a phone"

                                      Only people who are interested in mobile technology would have known about your survey and completed it. Those who only use a phone as a phone will have not known about it. This means that your population is already biased towards using a phone for purposes other than calling and explains why the results did not reach your expectations.

                                        • c
                                        • coomb
                                        • s30
                                        • 02 May 2011

                                        Great article, GSMArena, I was waiting for this since a few weeks! Really love your site, keep it up with the excellent work ;)

                                        Cheers!