In the United States, mobile phones were once seen as being only for high-powered businesspeople and the very wealthy. Today, these services have become widespread geographically, the number of subscribers has increased, the number of wireless minutes used has skyrocketed, and prices have fallen to the point that wireless phones are available to most of the American population.
Currently, wireless penetration in the U.S. is between 40 and 50%. Penetration in the under 24 segment is only between 10 and 15%. This leaves tremendous room for growth, which will come from both the wireless industry and consumers themselves. The wireless industry has seen their revenues per subscriber plummet. As a result, the industry is devoting tremendous resources to attracting new consumers and to keeping existing ones.
The youth market and entertainment are now the key drivers in this quickly maturing industry. Wireless providers are trying to reach kids and young adults in their own space. They are aggressively marketing text services and games. Personalization options from services to faceplates and stickers abound. Cobranding is a new strategy exemplified by handset styling, service options and branded content.
This report answers questions such as:
- Which young consumers are paying their own wireless phone bills?
- In what ways have prepaid services affected the youth wireless market?
- How has entertainment become vital to the wireless industry?
- How are the major providers targeting young consumers?
In this report, the youth market is treated as a single group aged 12 to 24. In the consumer research section, we will discuss them in two subgroups, those aged 12 to 17 and those aged 18 to 24.
The wireless industry includes several services such as pagers and two-way radio, digital personal communications services (PCS) and fixed wireless services, with the bulk of the market being comprised of cellular and digital PCS. The primary focus of this report is cellular and digital PCS. For the purposes of this report, wireless phones are defined as any mobile phone providing voice or data services via cellular or digital services.
Excluded from this report are pagers, two-way radios, and fixed wireless services as well as WAP enabled devices that are not cellular telephone handsets (such as PDAs).
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