While America’s cell-phone bandit may be the best known mobile-phone subscriber in the world, and consumers in Japan and Korea may have a corner on the coolest wireless apps on the planet, word on the street is Czechs-from teens to thirtysomethings-are the most crazed cell-phone users on Earth.
That’s the conclusion of a survey by Czech ad agency Mark BBDO. While survey results could not be obtained from the firm’s Web site, The Prague Post says young Czechs are more in love with their phones than their contemporaries in other countries.
They rate the mobile-not the computer-as the most important technological device they own. They never turn their phones off. They flirt through text messaging. And if they forget their mobile at home, they are more likely to return for it than for a forgotten wallet, reports Post staff writer Kristina Alda.
Alda quotes Mark BBDO client services manager Miloslav Knepr as stating: “The survey shows that young Czechs are mobile-phone freaks.”
And why not. Just how cool would the Festrunk brothers, Georg and Yortuk, have been with T-Mobile 3G phones to complement plaid bell-bottoms, big heels, open shirts with medallions and disco hats. Here, according to The Prague Post are some of Mark BBDO’s findings:
- 39 percent cite the mobile as their favorite technological device;
- 89 percent don’t leave their phone turned off for more than three hours;
- 36 percent think a mobile phone says as much about a person as their car;
- 67 percent would return home for a forgotten mobile;
- 34 percent would return for a forgotten wallet;
- 62 percent have flirted over mobile phones at least once;
- 12 percent have answered their phone during sex.
Heck, mobile phones in the Czech Republic are looking better everyday, with the country’s anti-monopoly office slapping dominant telecom carrier Cesky Telecom with an $8.3 million fine for anti-competitive practices.
Of course, it could be worse. You could be one of three French mobile phone carriers-Orange, SFR and Bouygues-hit with fines totaling $628 million for allegedly conspiring to thwart competition. Apparently the three mobile-phone operators, which plan to appeal, have a definition of information sharing different from the one touted by homeland security officials in the United States. Perhaps having multiple competitors does not necessarily translate into competition.
