French turn off their mobiles during meals, Chinese call and hang up after few seconds while Spanish are reluctant to use voicemail. But when it comes to Indians, it is the missed call they are most (in)famous for.

The Indian mobile user seems to have mastered the art of 'missed calls' - and actually to communicate without answering the calls! While cellphone operators are reluctant to give the exact share of missed calls, according to industry estimates, it is somewhere around 20-25 per cent.

Writes Nick Gray in a moblog (mobile blog) - in India 'Missed Calls' were very popular, as a way to say "I'm thinking about you" or "Call me back." I would often hear someone say, "I'll send you a missed call when we get there - see you soon."

"Even though cellular tariffs are pretty low, people were ingeneously using 'Missed calls' for signalling and saving money. The call rates are already low but most users want to make it lower by resorting to missed calls," says V Kumar, a cellphone user, who on an average gets around 10-15 missed calls every day.

"It's very irksome to call back someone every half an hour for no work of yours," says Kumar, noting the problem is more in case of office goers as callers think the office is going to pay for call back."

However, Kobita Desai, principal telecom analyst, Gartner, says "users tend to resort to giving missed calls when the message to be conveyed is just to make an announcement of one's presence or somewhat in those lines."

( www.financialexpress.com)