CROATIANS SPEND MORE AND MORE TIME ON THE PHONE

ZAGREB, Aug 17 (Hina) - The popularity of cell phones in Croatia continues to grow, as indicated by high growth rates in the mobile network traffic. In this year's first six months, Croatians spent 878 million minutes talking on cell phones, an increase of 23.7 percent from the same time last year, the Central Bureau of Statistics has said. #L# Judging by the number of minutes, the mobile telecommunications traffic in this year's second trimester went up 16.8 percent from the previous trimester, with 473 million minutes spent talking on cell phones. In the fixed network, traffic in this year's second trimester fell by 1.8 percent from the previous three months. In the year's first half, people spent 4.96 billion minutes on the telephone in the fixed network, up 11.2 percent from the first six months of 2002. According to a survey conducted by the Zagreb-based GfK Market Research Centre in February, 97 percent of polled households have a fixed phone, which alongside the TV set (98 pct) is the most represented technical product in Croatian households. At the same time, the number of cellular phones continues to spread, with the survey showing that 75 percent of polled households have at least one cell phone. The number of cell phones grows with the number of a household's members, and virtually every household with children has at least one. Households with an average monthly income of up to 270 euros have one cell phone in 33 percent of cases, while 98 percent of those with a monthly income exceeding 1,150 euros have at least one cell phone. The northern Adriatic peninsula of Istria and the coastal region lead as to the number of cell phones per household, with 86 percent having at least one. The Zagreb area follows with at least one cell phone in 79 percent of all households and the eastern region of Slavonia with at least one cell phone in about 60 percent of all households. (hina) ha