The mobile phone prophylactic arrives

WATER DAMAGE is the commonest cause of mobile phone failure and most handset insurance policies don't cover it. So the Dutch have come up with a prophylactic for mobile phones.

Known as mobile skins, these phone covers are designed to protect regular mobile phones from damage caused by paint, dirt or water.

Their supplier estimates that last year around 68 million mobile phones were damaged due to water or dirt worldwide. The company estimates this is big business because that equates to one out of every 25 mobile phones.

What the mobile skins provide is a transparent and protective cover which is actually claimed to be only 75 microns thick. The similarity between these covers and condoms isn't accidental either.

The product's inventor - Rogier van Camp - according to a report in The Metrro, was painting swimming pools and used a condom to cover his phone.

Unfortunately the lubricating jelly inside the condom ended up damaging the phone so van Camp decided to design his own special mobile phone condoms.

The association with condoms goes even further. In the UK they're sold in a packet of three for £2.99 or as a six-pack for £5.99.

Working on figures supplied by Simplyswitch.com, the supplier calculates that if 4.5 million phones are sold each year in the UK and one in 25 get damaged then that's a market worth £144 million (given that each handset costs on average £200).

Mobile skin suppliers in the UK can be found here. µ