location based blog: One-Third Of Teens Plan To Buy An iPhone Soon (AAPL)

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

One-Third Of Teens Plan To Buy An iPhone Soon (AAPL)

teen hugging mom with iPod

Teenagers are fickle, but one thing never seems to change.

They love Apple products.

More than one-third plan on buying an iPhone in the next six months, and 20% are planning to buy a tablet -- which probably means iPad.

Among MP3 players and online music services, the iPod and iTunes are the only ones that matter.

That's according to Piper Jaffray's latest bi-annual survey of high school students, now in its 21st year. This time, the firm asked 4,500 kids about their interest in Apple products and digital music.

Here are some of the highlights:

17% already own an iPhone, and 37% plan on buying one in the next 6 months.

22% either own a tablet or have one in their house, and 20% of them plan to buy one in the next 6 months.

Only 80% now own an MP3 player -- down from 90% last fall. More teens are listening to music on their cell phone (53% versus 50% last fall), so that may account for some of the drop. Or maybe MP3 players are no longer cool.

Of the teens who own MP3 players, 86% of them have an iPod. Microsoft's Zune is in distant second at 3%.

Of the teens who download music, 65% use file-trading services. Among the legal services, iTunes has 95% market share.

There is some small glimmer of hope for Spotify, Rhapsody, and other subscription services -- 37% of teens said they'd consider paying $15 a month for a music subscription.

Here are the complete results for iPhones and tablets:

Piper Jaffray teen survey iPhones tablets spring 2011