The people of Hong Kong, whom a recent survey showed to be the most achievement-orientated and materialistic in the world have pounced on the mobile phone as a business tool capable of satisfying their workaholic tendancies around the clock, and in situations not normally associated with business negociations. The result, reports the International Herald Tribune is that cinema goers are being disturbed by phones ringing at just the wrong moments, and at the last tennis championships in the colony, an inopportune call was enough to upset the serve of US star Andre Agassi. Just four years after their introduction, about 75,000 mobile phones are in use in Hong Kong, with this figure increasing by around 4,000 a month – only Norway and Sweden have a higher mobile phone per capita count, and in those countries the mobile phone is state-subsidised as an alternative to laying lines in remote areas. Fred Sum, marketing director of Hutchison Telecommunications Ltd, which introduced the phones in 1985 and has a 55% market share, says the phenomenon is a result of the inhabitants’ need to carry on work well into the late evening, while the cost of Hong Kong property has meant some people are buying the phones instead of setting up an office. And all this is despite the fact that the phones are not exactly cheap: the average price for a mobile phone is around $2,600, while the new 10 ounce Hutchison phones are selling like hot cakes despite a price tag of $3,900. The omnipresence of mobile phones in public places looks soon to be curtailed, however, as hotel and club owners ban calls inside their premises. Heinz Graber, manager of the plush Foreign Correspondents Club, was among the first to notice the phones ability to irritate: They’ve been banned here ever since they became a nuisance which was pretty quickly, he declared.
