Singing phones to oust iPods

Nokia claims that almost one in two people around the world use multifunctional phones as their main camera.

The Nseries survey, carried out in 11 countries, also found that over two-thirds of users predict a music-enabled phone will replace their MP3 player. Almost half said that they want to be able to hook up their phones to other home electronics kit.

Nearly half of respondents (44 per cent) use a mobile device as their main camera, with India being home to largest proportion of mobile snappers (68 per cent).

Globally, 72 per cent no longer use a separate alarm clock and 73 per cent use their mobile as their main watch or clock.

Web surfing from mobiles is still in its infancy, but over a third of respondents said they browse online from their mobiles once a month.

Unsurprisingly, Japan leads the way on this front with over a third surfing from their mobiles every day.

'The results strongly demonstrate that people are buying into the idea of convergence - they really do want one device that does it all, from taking quality images, to storing their music collections and operating a digitally connected home,' commented Tapio Hedman, senior vice-president of marketing, multimedia at Nokia.