African-American Millennials cemented their position as trendsetters in the media and technology space in 2016. But this cohort has been setting the tone for the conversations feeding social media and the web at large with an influence that vastly outweighs its user base for some time now.

1. African-American Millennials – Media and
Technology Habits
Top 3 Findings From The Hispanic Millennial Project
African-American Millennials cemented their position as trendsetters in the media
and technology space in 2016. But this cohort has been setting the tone for the
conversations feeding social media and the web at large with an influence that vastly
outweighs its user base for some time now.
But it’s not just social media. African-American consumers have also reached an
economic tipping point as the median income of black households has increased
3.5% over the past three years from 2011-2013, as The Great Recession has
waned. During this period, real median household income grew more among African-
American households (+$793) than among white households (+$433) and the total
population, according to the U.S. Census.
With these positive indicators, ThinkNow Research wanted to take a look at our most
recent wave of the Millennial Project, Wave 5, Media and Technology, to uncover
some overlooked data on African-American Millennials.
We found several opportunities in the technology and media space for companies to
focus resources.
Take a look:
Finding 1: African-American Millennials are the least likely to
stream TV programming now and in the near future.

2. While Hispanics and Asians have found a wave of content aimed at them on
streaming services (think Club De Cuervos and Master of None), African-American
programming has been resurging via live TV, such asBlack-ish and Empire. Of
course, both of these shows are available on the streaming service, Hulu, but
watching them live is still preferred from a user experience.
Streaming-only services such as Netflix and Amazon have a big opportunity here,
but to date, have failed to deliver. African-American Millennials desire more tailored
content on these platforms, but find the variety lacking in availability and relevance.
Finding 2: African-American Millennials are slightly more
likely than Hispanics to use gaming apps, though they under-
index in the usage of apps for weather and fitness.

3. Hispanics tend to dominate the over-indexing conversation, but when it comes to
gaming, African-Americans eek out Hispanics and are close behind Asians and non-
Hispanic whites. African-American gamers aren’t a segment the gaming industry
talks about much. They represent a large portion of Millennial gamers and could
represent an ideal user as African-Americans are active mobile users.
Conversely, fitness apps which are moderately popular among other Millennial
groups seem to miss the mark with African-Americans Market. A recent report by the
market research company research2guidance found that the number of health and
fitness apps available for iOS and Android devices has more than doubled in only
2.5 years, and that revenue from these apps is expected to grow from $2.4 billion in
2013 to $26 billion by the end of 2017. So the question becomes, are these apps
targeting African-American Millennials and if so, how?
Finding 3: African-American Millennials are the least likely to
stream music online compare to other Millennial groups.
Interestingly, African-American Millennials that do stream music online stream more
an average per day at 3.23 media hours vs. 1.91 hours per day for Hispanic
Millennials, 1.93 hours for White Millennials, and 1.64 hours per day for Asians.
There’s no question that African-American Millennials that do stream are very
engaged users. One of the factors that may lead to lower overall streaming in the

4. past 30 days could be the type of data plans African-Americans have from their
service providers.
According to Pew Research Center, 43% of African-American smartphone users
experience data caps either frequently or occasionally. With African-Americans
streaming music more hours per day than all other Millennial groups, providers like
T-mobile may have unlocked a big potential among this group with their Music
Freedom™ product which allows users to stream unlimited music without using data
while on their network from popular music services like Apple Music, Pandora, and
iHeartRadio.
As you can see, the impact African-American Millennials have on our consumer
landscape is undeniable and growing.
Consider this:
In music, with 2016 already more than half over, the artists and albums that will likely
end up as the biggest and best-selling of the year are becoming clearer. It should
come as no surprise that Drake’s Views is the best-selling album of 2016 so far by a
healthy margin. The record has sold almost 1.3 million copies, while its popularity on
streaming platforms simply can’t be matched. Beyoncé’s Lemonade only trails
Drake’s Views by about 100,000 actual sales.
In technology (and media, lines are blurring…), the Jay-Z led platform, Tidal, saw an
unprecedented growth rate in 2016. Tidal has been growing faster than Apple Music
and Spotify COMBINED. Additionally, we saw a resurgence of the Dr. Dre/Apple
Beats Brand with new beats launched for the U.S. Olympic team (and the
IOC’s failed attempt at banning the logo as it was not an official sponsor).
Additionally, after retiring earlier this year, Kobe Bryant made a big splash in the tech
world announcing a $100M venture capital tech fund with Jeff Stibel.
And as this group continues to grow in size and influence, understanding their
particular usage and consumption habits will be key to winning their spending
dollars. But that doesn’t just mean an increase in sales among this particular group.
Their influence extends beyond their demographic into U.S. culture at large.

5. To learn more about African-American Millennial technology and media trends,
download the full free report.
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September 6th, 2016|African American Millennials, African-American Market, African-American Market
Research, Blog, Consumer Sentiment, Integrated Market Research, Multicultural Consumers, Total Market
Research, Total Market Views
About the Author: Roy Eduardo Kokoyachuk
Roy is a Managing Partner at ThinkNow Research. He started his career at Warner
Bros. Media Research. A desire to pursue multicultural market research full-time led
him to join a full service Hispanic & multicultural market research company, in 2003
as Vice President of Advertising Research. He became Executive Vice President in
2006 and opened an operations center in Tijuana, Mexico and directed the
company’s entry into online research. In 2009 he initiated the creation of the first
nationally representative opt-in market research panel of U.S. Hispanics -
CadaCabeza. This panel broke new ground in panel building by focusing on the
recruitment of Spanish speaking Hispanics as well as the English speakers typically
found on online panels. He co-founded ThinkNow Research to further pursue his
passion for multicultural consumer insights.