Swapping chocolate for ringtones

The youth market is undoubtedly important to the mobile industry but new research suggests youngsters' priorities go far beyond what's 'fun', 'cool' or 'fashionable'.

A poll of 20 leading markets around the world by W2Forum has found five- to 24-year-olds will spend E13.4bn on mobile data services this year, and more than E20bn in 2006. Put another way, youths are spending between nine and 13.5 per cent of their disposable income on mobile products, in some cases at the expense of traditional distractions such as chocolate - sales of which fell for the first time in 50 years in the UK last year.

Text messaging continues to rule the non-voice youth communications world, even though richer MMS technology is becoming widespread. The study found "products such as Java games and MMS will need to displace spending on existing mobile or traditional youth products such as music, clothing and tobacco".

Ringtones come in second to text messaging in terms of youth spending, accounting for E2.3bn by 2006, with Japan, Korea, the US, Germany and the UK leading the way, in that order.

But next to the break down in spending, the main finding was that an industry known for its brilliant engineers and sophisticated marketers doesn't really know what makes the young tick.

The message is that - like grown-up markets - future emphasis must be on peer group interaction and communication rather than vague areas such as 'fun' or 'entertainment'. Even Java games, while forecast to account for E322m in revenues by 2006, will be cyclical, relying on 'one-hot wonders'.

The 211-page mobileYouth 2003 report is available to buy at www.mobileyouth.org.