Teens want to flock to the iPhone
We talk a lot about the movement of the iPhone into the boardroom as handset sales to major businesses continue to increase, but we maybe don’t talk enough about where the action really is: teenagers.
Somewhere in the deep prehistory of marketing, perhaps 30 years ago, the American teenager became the target of advertising of all kinds. What is termed the “teen demographic” has become the holiest of grails to advertisers, the sweet spot your ads and products have to hit. Gene Munster, Apple analyst par excellence at Piper Jaffray, thinks the same is true of the iPhone. Munster says, “We believe the teen demographic is a critical component of long-term growth in the digital music and mobile markets, and Apple is taking its lead in music and leveraging it in the mobile category.”
Munster is not just pulling numbers out of thin air. He and his team have done a bit of work in the marketplace and have some facts behind their figures, according to a Fortune article. For example:
- 33 percent of teens surveyed plan to buy an iPhone within 6 months, up from 22 percent last year. “Historically, interest in buying an iPhone has correlated to future market share gains among teens,” Munster notes, “although the last two surveys have not shown the same share gains we saw when the iPhone first launched.” Indeed, the 14 percent who say they already own an iPhone is down from 15 percent in 2009.
- The iPod’s share of the MP3 market stands at 78 percent down from 87 percent a year ago. Why the drop? Munster suggests it may be because 50 percent of students are listening to music on their smartphones.
- 76 percent of students download music — unchanged from last year — and most (66 percent) are still using free (P2P) file sharing networks rather than paying for their music. Among those who do pay, however, nearly all of them (95 percent) use iTunes.
Those are facts sure to pique the interests of Apple, teens, and parents. In some ways they are amazing, given that the least expensive iPhone is $200, exactly $175 more than I paid for my first automobile as a 16-year-old. If these numbers are right, the iPhone is likely to have a very nice Christmas indeed.
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