BUSINESS > World's most expensive mobile number is 666 6666

The world's most expensive phone number was auctioned for charity yesterday in Qatar.

The number, 666 6666, sold for 10m Qatari riyals or £1.5m.

The previous record holder was Chinese number 8888 8888, which sold for £270,000. The Cantonese word for eight sounds very similar to the word for rich. It was bought by Sichuan Airlines.

The auction started at a million riyals and interest quickly narrowed from eight bidders to just two, according to Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA).

The auction was organised by national telco Qtel, which has run two previous auctions and plans to run another in September. More details here. We tried phoning Qtel for more details, but they'd all gone home because it was 6pm...

Having seven sixes as your mobile number might seem devilish to some, but interpretations vary. A brief dip into the weird world of numerology shows 666 is seen as holy in Judaism because it represents six directions - up, down, north, south, east and west. Others equate it with the Arabic word "ellah" meaning God.

On a techy note, the first Apple Computer sold for $666.66, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is w - so www. shows how evil the internet is. And finally, Viagra has a molecular weight of 666.7g/mol. More nuttiness here.