- Ad Age, Friday, March 24, 2006 10:47 AM
Only 57 percent of teens aged 13-17 have cell phones, far below the 80 percent of adults who own a mobile phone, but a new study finds that while this group is smaller than the adult one, the
attachment its members have to their phones is far greater. Younger users are more likely to use all of the features on their cell phones and they're also more likely to try new offerings like mobile
TV. Says one executive from M:Metrics, a company that tracks wireless content and applications, younger phone owners, who have grown up with digital content from birth, "see [a phone] as this little
digital communicator that they can take with them wherever they go." Getting a phone has become a big rite of passage for nearly half of teens. According to Harris Interactive, a research firm that
tracks youth marketing, just 12 percent of 8-12 years olds have a cell phone, a number that jumps to 49 percent for ages 13-15. By ages 18 and 21, cell phone penetration reaches 81 percent. Telephia,
another market research firm, says the No. 1 reason teens cite for getting their phones is safety--their parents want to know they can reach them when they're not around; the phone is like "an
electronic leash." Most teens between 13-17 (62 percent) are on their parents' family plan, and another 15 percent use a prepaid phone like Virgin or T-Mobile To Go, says NPD, another research firm.
Of course, Mom and Dad foot the bill most of the time, with only 18 percent paying their own way, giving parents more power on restricting use of data and features. By far, the biggest users of
premium wireless features like game downloads, photo services, sports info, and entertainment news, are the younger set, followed by 18- to 24-year-olds, 38 percent of whom pay their own bill. Will
they pull back from premium features once they have to pay? Not likely, says one analyst. "It's going to be amazing to watch these people grow up," he says.
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