WebProNews

Use of mobile services is popular with young people with 47 percent of 15 to 18 year olds adopting them compared to only 17 percent of 35 to 44 year olds, according to a new report from JupiterResearch, "European Mobile Youth Consumer Survey, 2007: Targeting Digital Natives and Keeping Them Loyal."

The report found that around one quarter of 15 to 24 year old Europeans can be defined as mobile entertainment fans, using more than two new multimedia services such as live TV, music or games on their mobile phones.

"The growing importance of user-generated content, social networking, mobile music and free Internet content highlights the need to convince the younger generation to pay for services and to maintain their usage patterns on other services once they grow older." said Thomas Husson, Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch.

"Revenue growth will increasingly depend on the acquisition of digital natives, the loyalty of 15-24 years old as they age and providers' ability to initiate use among older demographics."

JupiterResearch also found that 15 to 24 year old Europeans tend to be heavy communicators, with 40 percent of them sending more than 10 SMS messages per day.

While mobile youth tend to be more likely to use and to pay for mobile services, 37 percent are not willing to pay for any services besides voice and SMS.

"Implementing a virtuous cycle between messaging and content could augment the current niche of mobile entertainment aficionados because they are also heavy communicators," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch.

"To leverage the nature of a personal communications platform, stakeholders must mix content and messaging."