96 per cent mobile subscribers get at least 1 pesky call everyday: Survey

An overwhelming majority of mobile phone subscribers in India get at least one pesky call every day and 92 per cent receive unsolicited calls even after being in the ‘Do Not Disturb’ list, as per a survey by online firm LocalCircles.

According to the survey, 78 per cent respondents said they get the highest number of pesky calls from financial services and real estate sectors.

“Of the total 11,157 mobile subscribers who responded to this question 66 per cent shared that they get 3 or more such phone calls on average every day. In fact, 96 per cent of mobile subscribers indicated that they receive at least one such call every day,” as per the LocalCircles survey released on Monday.

Also, 16 per cent respondents said they get 6-10 calls on an average per day, while 5 per cent got over 10 unsolicited calls every day.

The online survey, conducted between January 5 to February 5, received over 56,000 responses from citizens located in 342 districts. The number of responses to each question varied.

To a question on whether they got pesky calls even after being registered in the “Do Not Disturb” list, 92 per cent out of 15,040 respondents replied in the affirmative.

Out of 15,186 respondents, 78 per cent mobile subscribers said the maximum unwanted calls they received were from financial services and real estate sectors.

Asked about the source of the calls, 50 per cent out of the 15,312 respondents said they get pesky calls from different mobile phone numbers that seem to belong to individuals, 29 per cent said from mobile numbers that seem to belong to companies or brands and 14 per cent feel it is from a centralised landline number.

“Citizens employed in the financial services, real estate and other service industries shared insights about those in sales and marketing in their organisations hiring third party agencies for lead generation. As per the information shared, these contracted agencies have staff who use their personal mobile numbers from their offices or home to make such calls,” the report said.