Users spending more on mobile bill than electric or gas

Brits just can't live without their phones...

Mobile users boosted their spending this year as the phone became central to their lives.

Average monthly outlay by prepay customers jumped 14 per cent to £24.27 this year with users on contracts pushing their spending up by 16 per cent to £44.18 on average, according to the JD Power 2004 UK Mobile Customer Satisfaction Study.

Gunda Lapski, JD Power director of European telecommunications and utilities, said: "The striking thing about this year's survey, and we also cover utilities, is that people spend as much on their mobiles as they do on electricity and gas.

"This surprised me but I suppose some people would say that mobile phones are now fundamental."

The seventh annual snapshot of the industry produced another couple of surprises. Virgin Mobile jumped into top place for customer satisfaction in its first year in the survey, pushing Vodafone aside.

O2 and T-Mobile were the also-rans, being below the industry average.

The number of people using their mobile as their main phone has jumped from 20 per cent to 29 per cent of prepays and from 43 per cent to 53 per cent of contract payers.

But, while more people were happier spending more, more of them plan to add to the providers' problems by switching. Planned 'churners' are up to 18 per cent of those on contract, from 15 per cent last year, and 12 per cent of prepays say they'd like to make a move this year, as opposed to only 10 per cent last year.

More of them are ready for a leap into the future. Almost one in five already have a camera phone and another 26 per cent are interested in getting one. Beyond that, 23 per cent are definitely interested in owning a videophone - it doesn't seem to be the consumers holding back the move to 3G then.

About eight per cent of people's money is going on non-voice services: photo messaging and news and sport information. Lapski expects this to rise as providers and retailers educate their customers and as the service become easier to access.

The future looks rosy for mobiles. Lapski said: "I can't think of many industries where revenue has gone up by 14 to 16 per cent this year."