Young Latinos Lag In Mobile Use, But Boast Big Buying Power

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Young Latino adults don't use mobile devices to socialize and communicate with friends quite as much as other groups, indexing somewhat lower than the same age group in the general population for these activities. That's according to the Pew Hispanic Center's latest National Survey of Latinos, a telephone poll of 1,240 16 to-26-year-old Hispanics.

Specifically, Pew found that about 50% of young Latino adults (49% of 16- to-17-year-olds) said they send mobile text messages every day, while 45% talk on a cell phone. The text-message figure compares with 64% for non-Hispanic 16- to-17-year-olds, while 51% of non-Hispanics ages 16-17 said they talk on the cell phone every day.

However, a recent marketing study by Industry Research suggests that Hispanic mobile usage has a brighter forecast: "If the future of mobile carriers depends on their getting consumers to buy their data plans, then the U.S. Hispanic community is right in the sweet spot," says Robert Rosenberg, Insight Research president.

Insight's study "demonstrates that Hispanics are one of the most social groups online, and given the youth-oriented demographic of the U.S. Hispanic community, they become a prime target for the newer 3G and 4G cellular services," Rosenberg concluded.

Insight Research predicts that over the next five years, the U.S. Hispanic communities will spend $257 billion on telecommunications services, accounting for 17% of all residential telecom expenditures.

Still, young Latino adults ages 16-17 are also somewhat less likely to use social networking sites for these purposes -- 28% versus 31% for the same age cohort in the general population, notes Pew. Just 13% of young Latino adults ages 16-17 said they talk on a landline or home phone, compared to 32% among non-Hispanics.

While Hispanics index somewhat lower in mobile use than non-Hispanic whites, a separate study from eMarketer suggests that Hispanics are more likely to use mobile devices to research and buy products and services. 32% of Hispanics who own mobile devices would use them to compare prices, versus 23% of non-Hispanic whites.

Meanwhile, 16% would order an item via mobile and 33% would access information about an item for potential purpose, versus 11% and 18% of non-Hispanic whites, respectively. Another recent study found that 71% of English-speaking Hispanics engage with mobile content, versus a general population average of 48%.

Hispanics are also more likely to access news and information via mobile browsers (18.8% versus 9.6% for all subscribers). The total U.S. Hispanic population now numbers 46.9 million in population, wielding purchasing power of just over $1 trillion in 2010.

Pew also found that there is a high correlation between country of origin and technology adoption, with native-born young Latino adults showing much higher usage of all kinds of digital communications.

For example, 65% of native-born young Latino adults send text messages, versus just 26% of their foreign-born peers, while the proportions for daily cell phone use are 55% and 29%, respectively.

Thirty-one percent of the native-born group use a social-networking site, versus just 10% of the foreign-born, while the email gap is 13%-6%. The only place where the foreign-born group indexes higher is use of landlines or home phones, leading the native-born group 19%-17%. The different rates of mobile use are partly a reflection of differences in ownership: 84% of the native-born say they use cell phones, versus 70% of the foreign-born, with a 79% overall average. Young Latino adults who mostly speak English are also more likely to adopt these technologies than peers who mostly speak Spanish: 68% of "English-dominant" respondents send text messages, versus 50% of bilingual respondents and just 19% of the "Spanish-dominant" group.

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