The mobile phone is today an indispensable part of our lives, the one on-the-go device that keeps us connected at all times. But the problem is that these rather fragile devices can get damaged easily. A study on smartphone protection habits by OtterBox – which sought to understand how the habits of 2,500 smartphone owners over the age of 18 years from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore lead to phone damage, and examine how they are protecting their devices – revealed that one in ten respondents across the countries surveyed admitted to having damaged their smartphone more than 10 times in the past five years.
In fact, at the time of survey 41% of Singapore respondents admitted they were actually currently using a damaged smartphone, and a third (34%) of them even revealed that they damaged their smartphones in the bathroom/toilet (although we probably don’t need to go into the details for this). Yet Singapore respondents confess to only spending an average of USD19 on a smartphone case, while a third (29%) of these respondents will not spend more than USD10.
“Our smartphones are indispensable for work and play, but few recognise the importance of investing in good protection. A third of smartphone users in the region believe they will have damaged their brand-new smartphones within the first three months, despite having some form of protection. We hope the State of our Smartphones survey results will encourage users to opt for better smartphone protection,” says Steve Nisbet, Managing Director, OtterBox APAC.
Mobile phone habits across the world may differ, but considering that Singapore is a country whose mobile penetration rate is almost 150%, the numbers can be very telling. Here is an infographic from OtterBox that highlights some of the numbers from that survey:
