Brits hang up on landlines as millions switch to mobiles and Whatsapp

Landline numbers may soon be a thing of the past, as new figures show that much fewer people are using them. According to an Ofcom study, time spent on landline calls in the UK fell from 103 billion minutes to 54 billion minutes between 2012 and 2017.

This coincided with a rise in the amount of time people spent making calls on mobile phones - 132.1 billion to 148.6 billion minutes.

However, the most significant change in the period has been the increasing use of messaging apps like Whatsapp, which many younger people prefer to mobile phones.

This has led to a tenfold increase in the average amount of mobile data used by people per month, from 0.2GB to 2GB. The rise of messaging apps has been so dramatic that Ofcom even saw mobile-phone use fall in 2017, for the first time ever.

Ofcom interviewed a cross-section of consumers, finding a big difference between younger people, who preferred messaging apps, and older people, who still preferred talking over the phone. One 18-year-old told the regulator that speaking over the phone is “daunting”, and that it’s easier to contact companies using live chat online.

There was also a generational divide in attitudes to telephone area codes. While younger people didn’t often realise they related to a specific region, older people found area codes reassuring. One 67-year-old from Wrexham said “it’s helpful to know where things are”.

Ofcom has suggested that as landline calls decline, regional codes may no longer be needed.