While the grammatically-butchered title is indeed a play on a Dave Chapelle “Women be shoppin’” bit from the The Nutty Professor, the sentiment applies here. Simply put, teens love their iPhones.
While this may not come as a surprise — teens have long been identified for their buying power by Apple — seeing the numbers in front of you drives the point home. According to research conducted by Piper Jaffray, “Taking Stock With Teens,” which sounds like an awful lot like a flood of “LOL! U ROCK!!!” text messages and Ke$ha songs, teens of today have a strong affinity for Apple’s mobile devices.
This indicates, quite clearly, the cult of trend-following remains a strong attribute of young Americans.
Piper Jaffray’s report contains the following specifics:
Teen buying trends in portable devices show the rising popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod. The market share of iPhone rose to 17 percent, and, in the next six months, 37 percent of surveyed teens intend to purchase an iPhone (up from 31 percent one year ago). iTunes has remained the dominant music provider with 95 percent market share among online music services. Netflix appears well-positioned for increased DVD-by-mail usage and movie streaming, which collectively represents 63 percent of movie rental activity among teens, up from 42 percent two years ago.
While the allegiance to Apple’s shiny mobile devices is not truly surprising, the impressive amount of Netflix use gives one hope.
Considering the outright war going on with misguided content producers and Netflix, perhaps the younger generation’s commitment to the online movie rental service will force the Jeff Bewkeses of the world to rethink a strategy that includes neglecting one of the largest content distributors in the entertainment business.
As for the iTunes saturation, that comes as no surprise, either. In fact, it would be interesting to see if these youngsters could even name a music store besides Apple’s digital service; and no, Best Buy doesn’t count, either.
