Youth Driving Asia’s Mobile Market

As all Wireless Watchers will know, the youth market in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming a significant driver for growth in the region’s mobile-phone market, according to a report by In-Stat. Around 10-15 percent of all youth disposable income is spent on mobile products in developed countries, displacing spending on traditional youth products like clothing, toys, comic books, etc., while messaging accounted for 40.3 percent of Asian mobile youth data expenditures in 2004. 

In the Asia-Pacific region, spending by youth on mobile data services reached USD 15.2 billion in 2004, and the forecast growth rate for revenues is estimated at 15.3 percent annually from 2004 to 2010.

Ringtones, screensavers and wallpaper accounted for another 29.7 percent of the youth market followed by games at 9.7 percent and video, still nascent, at 6.5 percent.

“Messaging services will continue to remain most popular in the youth market in the near term,” says Rudy Teng, In-Stat analyst. “Revenue generated from SMS swelled 30.1 percent in 2004 and is likely to continue growing over the next two years.” Key applications for Asia-Pacific mobile youth include messaging, ringtones, wallpapers, logos, games, music and videos. Continue >>