Dialing Into the Youth Market

Teenagers have a penchant for sharing a great deal of information about themselves, contact details as well as interests and things they like. Which is great for marketers. The mobile industry is looking to capitalise on this trend with a host of services targeted at the 14-20 crowd. “Phone executives say a high priority is making it possible for teens to access, from their cellphones, blogs, online photo galleries and social-networking sites. Some phone executives say they are playing catch-up to replicate services, like sharing photo albums, that are already popular using sites on the Internet.” The other big difference about mobiles is that they’re personal, whereas most teens access the internet through computers that are shared with the rest of the family.
Some figures for the UK: 99% of 15-19 year olds have mobile phones, and collectively they spent $202.9 million on downloadable content and $570 million on text messages.
“Still, though teens are willing to pay as much as $3 for a ringtone, $7 for a mobile-phone game and $2 for a playable music file, their parents aren’t always on board. Also, their parents often see their phone bill or even pay for it. A company that figures out how to bill the parents for a basic contract while letting teenage users pay for games or photos could gain teen customers, analysts say.”

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