UK Mobile Youth Market Booms
Over the next two years the number of text messages sent each month in the UK by 5-24 year-olds will increase by more than 44% to 786 million, according to forecasts in the first global report on Mobile Youth from the World Wireless Forum (WWF).
According to the study, which focuses on the youth market in countries including the UK, Germany, the US and China, the average British 5 to 24 year-old sends around 2.05 SMS messages a day, compared with 2.75 in Germany and one every five days in the US.
The report shows that in the UK, single 14-18 year-olds send the highest volume of text messages, while 33% of 15-24 year-old mobile phone users send more than 20 messages per week on average. In general girls were found to send more text messages than boys, but the “heavy user” demographic is predominantly male.
59% of the UK youth market emphasised “fun” as the key appeal of SMS, with 24% primarily using text messages to chat with friends. Only 2% of those questioned considered advertising an appeal of text messaging.
Speaking at last week’s SMS 2002 mobile marketing conference, Anne de Kerckhova, MD of mobile marketing firm 12Snap, said: “5 to 24 year-olds see text messaging as their primary form of communication. They love SMS games and competitions and they are eager to respond to mobile marketing campaigns and to interact with brands.”
She added: “Fundamentally text messaging is all about dialogue. The most successful SMS campaigns are those which create simple, effective ads that anyone can understand in a few seconds.”
Also speaking at the SMS event, Pamir Gelenbe, vice president of business development at Flytxt, announced that an SMS advertising campaign created for Cadbury generated around 4 million responses in a two week period (see SMS Campaign Boosts Profits For Cadbury).
World Wireless Forum: 0207 470 8898 www.mobileyouth.org
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