On Teens And Apple Products

Gene Munster is back with Fall 2013’s instance of the biannual Piper Jaffray study on how Apple is doing in the teen market. I wrote a post on the Spring ’13 survey back in April, and while I can’t say I’m in high school any longer, I’m still very much in tune with teen demographic, maintaining many connections with younger teens from middle school to high school ages, as well as older teens my own age in college. I’m a middle school youth leader at my church, so I’m notably in contact with many middle schoolers from all over the North side of the city (the predominantly middle to upper class side) on a regular basis. I also do most of my work from a Starbucks nearby a huge local high school, and I see hordes of high schoolers come and go through there all the time. In almost all situations, I constantly find myself paying attention to what devices the people around me are carrying with them because the purely anecdotal evidence I collect has always been of interest to me. Hopefully in light of this survey it can be of interest to you as well.

Some of the main claims from this season’s survey state that the iPhone has grown in popularity from 48% of teens owning iPhones in Spring 2013 to 55% in Fall 2013, that of the 56% of teens owning tablets, 60% of those are full size iPads and 8% are iPad Minis, that of the 20% of teens who plan on buying a tablet in the next month, 52% plan on buying a full size iPad while 12% plan on buying an iPad Mini, and that 65% of teens expect their next phone to be an iPhone.

iPhones

Just like last time, my own observations quite clearly corroborate the study’s validity. In fact, iPhone adoption in Tucson, a fairly average, not especially tech savvy American town, with only a single small Apple store for miles, is booming. Not to suggest the study is undercutting, as I’m sure it’s balanced out in other areas, but if the iPhone doesn’t make up even more than 55% marketshare for smartphone owning Tucson teens, I would be very surprised. Furthermore, most of the teens I’ve talked to who don’t have iPhones seem to want them desperately. Only long contracts and empty wallets stand in their ways.

Moving on from my anecdotal evidence, allow me to conjecture as to the reason for Apple’s immense popularity within the teenage demographic. First, a cite from John Moltz’s similarly biannual response to the Jaffray study, in which he reminds us that Apple is a Piper Jaffray client, plus a couple other objections:

I’m sure teens do love them. They also love music, junk food and loudly proclaiming that no one understands them and slamming the door.

As much as I would love to stand up for my own demographic, I’m afraid Moltz is quite right in his sum up of the teenage proclivity to throw themselves passionately, and too often over-emphatically, behind particular interests. Argue with a teen about why their favorite band isn’t really that good, and prepare to face the wall of an irrational infatuation, a barrier even the soundest of logic can rarely penetrate. Teens love to love things, but the flip side of this affinity towards fanaticism is that the teenage culture loves to forget things. Insult any given teen’s favorite band and prepare to withstand a tirade of ardent vindication, but insult the band they were die hard fans of just last year and scratch your head when they agree with you. Bringing us back around to technology, it works the same way with social media. This year they flock to Twitter and Instagram, last year it was Facebook and just a few years before that, MySpace reigned supreme. Suffice it to say, teenagers are not known for their brand loyalty.

A bit of insight from my fairly unique perspective: it’s not the same with Apple. In fact, you don’t even need to base this realization on the purely observational insight of one teenager from one city, all you have to do is look at the trends from the last decade. The iPhone may be the latest Apple product to be gaining traction among teens, but we can’t forget to look beyond it to another Apple innovation a little bit older: the iPod. Apple’s iPod was a hit in the teenage market before the iPhone even existed. An iPod is the only MP3 player most teens have ever owned. Apple established itself as “cool” in the eyes of teenagers with the iPod long before iPhone, and while iPods may be dropping in popularity among teens (and just in general), this isn’t because they’re leaving Apple for a competitor, it’s because they’re buying iPhones instead. Unlike music, clothes or social networks, Apple devotion is not just a fad to be abandoned at the drop of a hat, but a long standing tradition.

All my observations, everything I hear, and a decade of history with Apple products all point not only to the legitimacy of Piper Jaffray’s study, but also to the idiocy of all the Apple bashers mindlessly proclaiming that Apple is no longer cool to teenagers. Apple has been more popular among teens longer than almost any other brand, and there is absolutely no indication of this interest waning any time soon. In fact, the iPhone 5c and 5s have generated more buzz among the teens I know than any other iPhone update I’ve witnessed. In a population in which self differentiation is simultaneously sought after and feared, having iPhones with such easily demonstrable features as fingerprint sensors and on-the-spot slo-mo videos, or such obviously new and excitingly bright externals as the candy colored casings on the iPhone 5c is a powerful draw for teens wanting to stand out from the crowd. iPhones of any type are cool, but having the newest or the best iPhone brings others flocking around you to see. For attention craving teenagers, nothing beats this feeling of being envied by their peers.

Before I get to the iPad, there’s one last iPhone-related caveat I’d like to discuss. John Gruber points out this in regard to the survey’s results:

I would say AppleInsider’s headline (“More Than Half of Teens Own an iPhone, iPad Immensely Popular”) is wrong. The description of the methodology suggests that lower-income teens were not included in the survey.

This prompted me to stop and think more closely about the cross section of teens I see on a regular basis. Since almost all of them are from the North side of town, I really am only seeing this huge interest in iPhones in what are likely the upper and middle class teens that the poll clearly claims to be surveying. Curious as to what the lower class demographic looked like, I turned to my friend Jansen Azarius.

Jansen is the director of a youth center called Higher Ground, located in South Tucson. The South side is a notoriously low income area, with over 50% of the residents of South Tucson living below the poverty line, and an average yearly income of a little over $20,000. Higher Ground draws kids from all over this part of the city, a cross section of a huge portion of schools and teens in the area. When I asked Jansen what types of phones they carry, he reported that the majority of them use Cricket for their cell phone provider due to the service being prepaid, so it was likely that hardly any had iPhones at all, he certainly hadn’t noticed any trends in that direction. Furthermore, the area has a high crime rate, and it’s well known that iPhone theft is a bit of an epidemic all over the US in recent times, another reason for teens in bad areas to avoid having an iPhone.

With Jansen’s remarks in mind, I find it doubtful that the iPhone truly holds near 50% of the total teen market, as AppleInsider and others are suggesting based on this study. The iPhone has always been a premium product, like most Apple products, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if lower income families cannot afford them, or at least the expensive contracts that accompany them. However, since Cricket just recently started selling the iPhone, perhaps it’s share will begin to creep higher in lower income markets now that a prepaid version is available.

iPads

I won’t say much on iPads. They aren’t carried around in plain sight as obviously as iPhones are, so it’s much harder to gauge how popular they are and I don’t want to blindly guess. That said, I will say that of the teens I do see using iPads, I almost never see iPad Minis. This goes right along with Jaffray’s results that the Mini has yet to become as popular as other Apple products. Based on what I’ve heard about the iPad Mini from other teens I know, I don’t believe that Apple has done a good enough job marketing it to the teen demographic. Teens I’ve spoken to don’t see a point to the iPad Mini. They think that it is too small to do any school work on and too big to carry around easily like their iPhones. While that’s obviously not true (need we any more evidence that the Mini can be a productivity powerhouse than knowing that Federico does most of his writing for MacStories from a Mini?), I’d say the fact that many teens I’ve spoken with think it is true shows a small failure on Apple’s part, or at least a missed opportunity. The iPad Mini is an iPad nearly as fully featured as the full size iPad, yet smaller and more portable and significantly cheaper. That sounds like something that teens would be coming to buy in droves, but somehow Apple hasn’t yet succeeded in making such an impression with the Mini.

Of course, the iPad Mini is also still young, not even a year old at the time of this writing, and no previous Apple product has gained traction in the teen demographic during its first year either. I think many had expected the Mini to be an exception since it wasn’t exactly a whole new product category, and I think it could have been had Apple managed to catch the eyes of more teens with their marketing. Still, the fact that it hasn’t yet gained traction means nothing about the iPad Mini’s future in the teen market. Once more teens get Minis, and its made clear that they can be used for more than just reading and playing, I think the Mini will grow rapidly in popularity.

Overall, from my purely observation based anecdotal evidence, I believe Piper Jaffray’s claims are valid. I can’t speak certainly for iPads, but I have no real reason to doubt they’re about as successful as the survey suggests. The iPad Mini, at least, definitely seems to fit with the poll’s evaluation. As for the iPhone, even without the support of lower income families, this device is an undeniable success in the teenage demographic. With no signs of iPhone popularity abating, and with interest in the newest iPhone models seeming stronger than ever before, I predict Apple’s growth in the teen demographic to continue to increase. iPhones are much more than just another fad in today’s teenage culture, they’re part of a long standing brand loyalty the likes of which a tech company like Apple has never before known from teenagers.