No surprise: Kids are big mobile spenders
Apparently, today's 10-year-olds will spend more than $15K on mobile services by the time they're 35. This information comes courtesy of the World Wireless Forum, which just completed a study on the mobile market among youths.
According to the study, kids and young adults are gobbling up text messaging, mobile music and mobile radio services at a pace well ahead of the rest of the world. The mobile industry is counting on these youngsters to spark growth in what is otherwise a fairly "mature"--read, low growth--business for the carriers. In other words, mobile folks need to make the next gen into addicted spenders if they're going to keep making a reasonable profit. But luckily for them, getting today's younger gen to spend on mobile is a cinch--just a matter of dropping a spark on some very dry tinder.
My first-grader and preschooler are already major digital consumers, they see Daddy and Mommy using the Internet every day, and they own every gaming platform and PC imaginable. For these guys, I think, nothing short of a virtual-gaming and mobile-texting capable, Internet-friendly and cell-network connected skin implant will do the trick. No wonder The Sims was such a major hit--our kids are becoming Sims, living more in the mobile, digital, virtual world than they do in the one in front of them. God only knows what my three year old, who's already having long imaginary talks on his toy cell phone, will be spending by the time he's ten!
According to the study, kids and young adults are gobbling up text messaging, mobile music and mobile radio services at a pace well ahead of the rest of the world. The mobile industry is counting on these youngsters to spark growth in what is otherwise a fairly "mature"--read, low growth--business for the carriers. In other words, mobile folks need to make the next gen into addicted spenders if they're going to keep making a reasonable profit. But luckily for them, getting today's younger gen to spend on mobile is a cinch--just a matter of dropping a spark on some very dry tinder.
My first-grader and preschooler are already major digital consumers, they see Daddy and Mommy using the Internet every day, and they own every gaming platform and PC imaginable. For these guys, I think, nothing short of a virtual-gaming and mobile-texting capable, Internet-friendly and cell-network connected skin implant will do the trick. No wonder The Sims was such a major hit--our kids are becoming Sims, living more in the mobile, digital, virtual world than they do in the one in front of them. God only knows what my three year old, who's already having long imaginary talks on his toy cell phone, will be spending by the time he's ten!
posted by Anne Zieger at 6:17 AM
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