Carriers should tailor offerings specifically for Hispanic teens
October 7, 2008
A market that likes mobile
A recent study conducted by MultiMedia Intelligence found that wireless carriers should tailor product and subscription offerings specifically for U.S. teen Hispanics.
Specifically crafted ad-campaigns, feature-sets and subscription offerings can win business currently and build brand-equity to teen Hispanic wireless subscribers in the future.
"It is important to note that ways that Hispanic teens use their handsets are different than non-Hispanic teens," said Frank Dickson, cofounder and chief research officer at MultiMedia Intelligence, New York.
"Non-Hispanic teens tend to use advanced handset features more pervasively such as mobile games and camera and camcorder functionality," he said. "Hispanic teens tend to focus on personalization features such as ring tones and use voice-centric applications more predominantly than their non-Hispanic counterparts.
"Handset offerings and marketing messages should focus on the personalization aspects of the phone as well basic and advance voice utility."
The Hispanic wireless teen market is 2.5 million subscribers, or roughly 16 percent of the overall U.S. teen market. This demographic is sufficiently large enough for carriers to maximize revenues and build brand-equity for longer-termed relationships.
Like the overall U.S. teen wireless market, U.S. Hispanic teens have a higher ARPU than the adult demographic.
However, while the teen wireless market is nearly saturated, the Hispanic teen market is still in a growth stage.
"Fundamentally, while the non-Hispanic segment is starting to stagnate in terms of growth of subscribers, the Hispanic teen market will continue to see continued subscriber growth as a result of the growth of the demographic segment overall," Mr. Dickson said.
Also, Hispanic wireless teens have different approaches to advanced-telephony services and multimedia applications.
The research relies on survey data of 1,383 U.S. teens annually from the Simmons National Consumer study, a product of Experian Consumer Research.
This research is a result of MultiMedia Intelligence's strategic partnership with Experian.
"Hispanic teens are more voice centric than their non-Hispanic counter parts," Mr. Dickson said. "SMS and mobile Web programs are going to be less effective than with non-Hispanic teens.
"Traditional marketing channels have more promise with Hispanic teens," he said.