Global mobile market is surging and young people have exponential say in that. As per a new report, published by Neilson, young people around the world are the biggest contributors in mobile technology market share, though how they do so tends to vary by both location and gender.
According to the report, China holds the supreme position in the mobile Internet market. Approximately 73% Chinese youth, age 15 to 24, are citing mobile Internet usage as among the things they used their cell phones for in the past month. By comparison, less than half of American and British cell-phone toting youths used the Internet from their mobile devices, while the rest of Europe had rates less than 25 percent. Surprisingly, In India, which is known as biggest mobile advertising hub, youths are not mesmerized towards mobile internet usage and less than 10% youths are committed towards such usage.
Mobile messaging is also big, though in most parts of the world young women are far more likely than young men to send text and picture messages. However, India stands with strong exception where men were twice as women to send text messages and almost 5 time more men goes with multimedia message than women.
The Nielsen research was conducted in 19 countries, though the report broke out results only for the U.S., UK, India, Italy, Brazil, China, Spain, Russia and Germany. In most countries Nielsen surveyed 5,000 young people, though in the U.S. it surveyed 75,000 youths. In some countries the research was done face-to-face and in others the survey was done online.
In most countries across the globe, young men are more likely than women to have smartphones, though the U.S. is an exception with young women making up 55 percent of smartphone owners between 15 and 24. The adoption of smartphones versus feature phones also varies widely. In India, for example, feature phones outnumber smartphones 9 to 1 among young people, while in Italy smartphone adoption is nearing 50 percent among the younger set.
Advanced data usage was highest in the U.S and China, where about 17 in 20 young people did more than just make calls and send text and picture messages. That type of data use was least common in India, where only 13 percent did so, However, another 51 percent of Indian youths used their phones for text and/or picture messages.
The Nielsen study also looked at other patterns including use of more than one SIM card and whether phones are prepaid or postpaid, although those trends seemed to have more to do with how the country’s cell phone industry is set up as opposed to indicative of trends among youth.
