Mobile users thrice as affluent as non-owners

Survey reveals why telemarketers can't help calling.

If you're wondering why telemarketers are so desperate to call mobile phone users and why they're dreading the Do-Not-Call registry which will be active in another month, this reason is simple: mobile phone users have the best income demographics in the country.

Consider these facts from IIMS Dataworks' Invest India Incomes and Savings Survey 2007:

Over 46 per cent of earners from the country's 73 million households with mobile phones could be in the market for life insurance in the next 12 months (27 per cent will definitely buy life insurance, the rest are considering it);

Over 10 million earners from these households will be in the market for mutual funds and another 7 million will be looking to buy equity, in either the primary or the secondary markets.

The survey shows a significant difference between average annual household incomes for mobile-phone owning households and those that don't "" Rs 186,322 and Rs 56,654 respectively. 

UPWARDLY MOBILE How mobile phone households are different in terms of income and consumer demographics
Annual Income   in Rs	Households  with  mobile phones	Households  without  mobile phones
<=90,000	38.9	85.6
90,001 - 200,000	39.5	12.2
200,001 - 500,000	15.4	1.9
500,001 - 1,000,000	5	0.2
>1,000,000	1.1	0
Total	100	100
Durable ownership
Two wheeler	60.3	9.6
Four wheeler	14.3	1.7
Colour television	82.3	21.1
(per cent households in each group)

In the case of big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, the average annual household income of a mobile-owning household is Rs 317,872 against Rs 118,773 for a non-mobile household. In rural areas, the figures are Rs 133,326 and Rs 52,344 respectively.

Indeed, in the higher income groups, the household is more likely than not to own a mobile phone. In the case of households with an annual income of less than Rs 90,000, less than 19 per cent own a mobile. But in the case of households with an income of more than Rs 10 lakh a year, 93 per cent own mobile phones.

Looked at another way, while 86 per cent of households who do not own mobile phones have an annual income of less than Rs 90,000, the figure is a much lower 39 per cent in the case of those households that have mobile phones.

Around 40 per cent of mobile owning households have an annual income of between Rs 90,000 and Rs 200,000 "" just 12 per cent of non-mobile owning households have incomes in this category.

In terms of ownership of consumer durables, the picture is even more skewed in favour of mobile-owning households. Over 60 per cent of mobile-owing households own a two-wheeler as compared to under 10 for non-mobile households (the all-India average is around 27 per cent).

Over 14 per cent of mobile-owning households have a car/jeep as compared to under two per cent for non-mobile owning households. The figures are 82 per cent and 21 per cent in the case of colour televisions.

Mobile phone-owning households also tend to be bigger investors and users of financial instruments. So, while 85 per cent of mobile owning households put their savings in bank accounts, the figure is 36 per cent for non-mobile households.

A higher proportion of mobile phone-owning households also own insurance policies, mutual funds and property.