47% of Pinoys think cellphones irreplaceable: study

Forty-seven percent of Filipinos believe their mobile phones would be harder to replace than their wallets, a worldwide survey by global market research firm Synovate said Friday.

The survey, which interviewed 8,000 respondents across 11 markets, showed that the Philippines was the closest market to being split on the issue of which was harder to replace -- the mobile phone or the wallet.

The Synovate survey said 47 percent of Filipino respondents say their mobile phone would be harder to replace while 52 percent chose their wallet or purse.

Synovate Philippines managing director Carole Sarthou said Filipinos would find the mobile difficult, or even impossible, to replace. "The connection to other people stops when the phone is lost. It's a storehouse for photos and videos, but most vital are contact details. Filipinos seek constant connection," she said.

Steve Garton, Synovate's global head of media, noted that the mobile phone is slowly taking over as a purchasing tool for Filipinos.

"The mobile has yet to take over the wallet or purse as the absolute epicenter of people's lives but it is certainly on the way. This is happening now, for example, in the Philippines and Africa where millions of dollars have been transacted via mobile. The telco has effectively become a bank, allowing even those in rural areas to send and receive mobile money," he said.

Garton said Filipinos are using their mobile phones as more than just communication devices. Eighty-seven percent of Filipinos use the phone's alarm clock feature, 63 percent play games regularly, 48 percent listen to or download music, 44 percent watch video clips and 13 percent even watch TV -- all on their mobile phones.

Sarthou explained this is part cultural and part circumstantial. "It's part of the national psyche to love social connections, music and entertainment. How the Filipino love affair with the mobile is different compared to developing nations is that, in many cases, a mobile is all people have.

"It's the only way they can listen to music, the only way they can play games and the only way they can communicate from afar. Many Filipinos use this instead of the Internet and computers and it's not surprising that it has become such a multi-purpose, multi-tasking tool."

The survey showed that three quarters of the 8,000 plus respondents never leave home without their phones (led by 92% of Russians and 89% of Singaporeans) and more than a third (36%) go as far as to say they cannot live without their mobile (topped by 60% of Taiwanese and 49% of Singaporean respondents).

Sleeping with their cellphones

Sarthou said most Filipinos would rather risk interrupted sleep than go to bed without their mobile phones. The survey showed that 70 percent of Filipinos go to bed with their phones, compared to 62 percent of mobile users in Malaysia.

Fifty-four percent of Filipinos confess they feel excited when their phone rings or beeps for a message.

Some Filipinos have also used text messaging in managing their relationships. The survey showed that 23 percent of Filipino mobile users have broken up with someone via text messaging while 17 percent of Filipinos have been dumped in a relationship via text.

Fifty-seven percent of Filipino mobile users said they used text messaing to lie about why they were running late or where they are. Forty-nine percent of Filipinos also said they used a text to say no or send a difficult message.

The Synovate mobile phones survey was conducted online in June 2009 in Canada, Denmark, France, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Britain and the United States.