Teens' Mobile Activities

Teens’ Mobile Activities
ARF Council Meeting
August 19, 2008
Jen Wu, Analyst

© COMSCORE M:METRICS 2008
Agenda
The Big Picture: online and mobile
Focusing on mobile behaviors:
Communication
Personal Media
Reference
Other interesting stuff
Notes

Let’s start with the context.
There are 16.9 million mobile phone users aged 13-17 in the US.
Many are newbies: Who don’t pay the wireless bill:
Less than a
year, 31.0%
For 1-3
years,
49.1%
For >3
years,
19.9%
Family plan;
personally
responsible,
6.3%
Other, 6.3%
Pre-paid
plan, 18.6%
Family plan;
other family
member
responsible,
68.8%
Along with being enrolled in a
family plan, many Teens also have
a text or photo messaging plan.

What teens do online…
Top overindexing Internet sites (among top 100 properties) for persons aged 12-17
Month of June-08
181
172
171
145
134
128
127
126
125
121
100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190
WildTangent Network
Photobucket
ARTISTdirect Network
Viacom Digital
Gorilla Nation
Disney Online
Sony Online
Apple Inc.
Fox Interactive Media
Webkinz.com
Index (% Teen audience for site compared to % Teen audience for Internet)
games
photo sharing
personal
pages, humor
MySpace

… Has a lot to do with what they do on mobile.
Top overindexing mobile activities for persons aged 13-17
218
213
198
197
184
184
183
180
149
143
100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240
Downloaded songs directly to phone
Accessed comics or humor
Uploaded photo to website
Made own ringtone
Captured video
Bought ringtones
Played games
Listened to music on mobile phone
Used major instant messaging service
Used social networking, content-sharing, or blog site
Index (% Teen users for activity compared to % Teen users of mobile phones in general)
games
photo sharing
humor
MySpace

But not always!
Technical capabilities factor strongly.
Top three handsets owned by Teens:
1. Motorola RAZR V3m, Silver
2. Motorola i415
3. Motorola RAZR V3, Silver
Nearly half a million
teens have this model
alone.
% of Teens that have:
Smartphones 5%
3G (broadband-speed) 30%
Musicphones 42%
Cameraphones 70%
Advanced browsers* 80%
*defined here as phones supporting WAP 2.X or Full HTML browsers.
Teens’ phones are about
average when it comes to
mainstream features such as
cameras and 3G, but teens
are less likely to have newer,
more advanced capabilities.

YouTube, for example.
Online, Teens easily outrank other age groups in YouTube viewership:
Teens vs. Average:
Reach: 68.9% 57.6%
Videos per viewer: 66.4 53.2
But, with regards to mobile, Teens are less likely to have handsets that support
video streaming or applications.
1%
2%
4%
2%
1%
0% 0%
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
All ages 13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+
% of age group that accessed YouTube on mobile Teens are still more
likely than average to
watch YouTube videos,
but in this case
technology is a very
strong limiting factor.

Agenda
Communication
Personal Media
Reference
Notes
Yes, Teens are enthusiastic, tech-savvy
multimedia consumers, but they don’t
just do everything-times-ten. Their
perception and usage of the mobile
handset is a bit different than for other
age groups, warranting a closer look at
three main behavior categories.

Messaging on mobile
Teens are avid text messagers, as well as IM users, compared to the overall mobile
population.
52%
9%
4% 3%
74%
13%
5% 4%
13% 13%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Sent text message
to another phone
Accessed personal
email account
Used major IM
service
Used chat Sent/received
messages on social
networking site
% of overall mobile users that: % of Teens that:

Cameraphone functions
Creating and sharing personal multimedia only comes naturally to a teenager who
has a cameraphone in his/her pocket all the time.
41%
9%
14%
8%
4%
58%
17%
26%
14%
8%
24%
37%
0%
20%
40%
60%
Took photos Sent photo
directly to
another phone
Uploaded photo
to web
Captured video Sent video
directly to
another phone
Uploaded video
to web
Photos Videos

Uploading photos to websites
Growing fast! Nearly 3 million teens uploaded photos in June to websites.
Projected number of Teens uploading cameraphone photos to websites:
545,322
2,865,243
0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
Jun-05 Dec-05 Jun-06 Dec-06 Jun-07 Dec-07 Jun-08
Three-month moving averages
Near the middle of 2007,
cameraphones crossed the 50%
mark (of phones owned in the
US). Multimedia messaging hit
the mainstream, and photo
uploading followed.

Social networking, content-sharing, and blogging
Activities
Among mobile social networkers, % who:
77%
20%
53%
31%
37%
46%
76%
34%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Browsed site
content
Posted
written
content
Posted
image/video
Sent/received
messages
Overall mobile users:
Teens:
MySpace vs. Facebook
Among mobile social networkers, % who
accessed:
59%
40%
81%
26%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
MySpace Facebook
Overall mobile users:
Teens:
Definitely
MySpace.
As previously
mentioned…

Music and personalization on mobile
Teens are about twice more likely than the average to buy new music and ringtones.
8.4%
1.1%
10.5%
9.2%
6.2%
15.1%
2.5%
20.8%
17.0%
9.1%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Listened to music
on mobile phone
Downloaded new
songs to phone
Made own ringtones Purchased
ringtones
Subscribed to
ringback service
Full-track music Personalization
This is actually
36% of Teens with
musicphones…
…compared to
22% overall.
(You might have expected that.)
But teens are also savvy with their musicphones;
21% changed their ringtone to one they made
themselves using MP3 files or found on the Internet.

0
50
100
150
200
250
Comicsorhumor
Entertainmentnews
Movieinformation
Horoscopes
Searchengine
Women's
magazines
Weatherreports
Sportsinfo/news
Restaurantinfo
Maps/directions
Local/national/world
news
Trafficreports
Men'smagazines
Stocks/financial
news
Information, news, utilities… everything’s available!
But what do Teens actually want to find?
6.6% of mobile Teens (that’s 1.1 million of them) use their
phone’s browser to look up comics or humor sites. They
are twice more likely to do so than the average mobile user.
6.6% 6.2%
2.7%
8.2%
1.2%
7.2%
4.7%
2.7%
4.5% 4.1%
1.7%
0.5%
1.6%
8.4%
0%
5%
10%
Index
% of
Teens

Agenda
Communication
Personal media
Reference
Notes

iPhone
The Apple iPhone’s audience is mostly comprised of 18-34 year-olds, but the
iPhone 8GB is already the #1 smartphone owned by Teens. As iPhone 2.0 gets into
more Teens’ hands, it will kickstart awareness and engagement with mobile
functions such as browsing, email, and maps at an early age. And gaming will
become an even bigger revenue opportunity than it already is.
Projected number of Teens with iPhones (any version):
106,117
10,941
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
100,000
120,000
Aug-07 Sep-07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08 Apr-08 May-08 Jun-08
Three-month moving averages

Text messaging and advertising
Despite Teens’ familiarity when it comes to texting in to polls and contests, they
are much less likely to respond to text ads or non-mobile ads requiring them to
send a text message response.
2.4%
2.0%
4.5%
1.6% 1.5%
6.0%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
Responded to SMS
advertisement
Responded to advertisement
via short code in month
Responded to poll or contest
via short code in month
% of overall mobile users that: % of teens that:

Notes
M:Metrics data are three-month averages ending June-08 unless otherwise noted.
comScore data are month of July-08.
All are US data.

Contact
Jen Wu
jwu@comscore.com
Questions (clients):
support@comscore.com
Questions (non-clients):
rhooven@comscore.com

Teens' Mobile Activities

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