Asda Mobile finds Brit men phone from the loo

Rating: Coins the terms throne call

Asda Mobile seems to think that the discovery that one in five men admit to regularly using their phones whilst in the smallest room [bathroom] is hot news. Well, the term ‘throne calls’ might be new but long standing mobile/cellular observers like GoMobile News have know of this habit for a very long time. Indeed, we remember such research coming out in WAP’s heyday [2000]. Better still, when BT more recently trialled mobile TV near to its research centre at Martlesham, it did its best to surpress the discovery that traillists regular watch TV on their smartphones whilst in the bathroom. There’s no electricity in the loo so it is an ideal solution. Asda’s research comes with some other equally long suspected conclusions, but at least the MVNOs has quantified it for us all with its poll.Here at GoMobile News, we remember research which identified cellular habits by nationality (within Europe) and the English came top for answering the phone in the loo.

That research showed that the French were most likely to take a call in the middle of a business meeting.

We didn’t believe it until we saw a French presenter take a call from his wife mid keynote speech.

Anyway, Asda’s poll [conducted amongst 2,000 people in June 2012] also showed that almost half (48 per cent) of people aged over 60s only pick up their phone when it rings.

By contrast, 60 per cent of teens check mobiles at least once every 15 minutes.

GoMobile News isn’t so sure about the fact that virtually everyone (98 per cent) of us own a mobile phone. We can think of at least four people who refuse to use a mobile phone.

But then of those four, two were given handsets as Xmas presents so in theoretically they do actually own one.

GoMobile News wonders, how many of those handset refuzniks  have been cut off for failing to make a single call even though they have credit?

Here’s another interesting discovery. Four out of ten people are texting, using social media or calling while watching TV.

That means such people can still be targeted by mobile advertising whilst watching TV. Significant.

Asda’s resident mobile phone expert, David Fletcher, observes, “For most of us, our mobile phone is rarely out of reach. From waking us up to reminding us about important events.

He adds, “Many people rely on their mobile for a lot more than just communicating,” which confirms 02′s recent research (see our previous story here) that talking is no longer the main activity with a smartphone.

Fletcher then leaps to the conclusion that,”The red phone booth [phonebox] might be disappearing from our streets but it doesn’t mean we’re not making calls -in fact quite the opposite.”

We’re not quite sure how he reached that conclusion from the results of this poll.