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Home > Blogs > Here's the Deal > Archives > 2008 > December > 24 > Entry
Tween market pumps cell phone sales
The Palm Beach Post reported last week that sophisticated smart phones are making their way into the hands of the youngest teenagers, younger preteens and trickling all the way down to first-year elementary school students.
Parents have been buying cell phones for teens for years now, but the market has evolved, as it does, to find new markets.
One study, they reported, projects that 35 percent of children 7 years old and younger will have cell phones by 2012.
“It’s how our economy works. You saturate certain markets, and go elsewhere to find more hands for phones,” said cultural anthropologist Robbie Blinkoff of the Baltimore-based Context-Based Research Group.
Text messaging is a big part of that draw.
The Palm Beach story says that cell phone users younger than 12 averaged just 137 calls a month in one three-month period tracked by Nielsen Mobile. But they typed more than 400 text messages during the same time frame.
And they note that the difference just gets wider as the teenager gets older. Teens ages 13 to 17 averaged 231 calls — but 1,742 texts a month.
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Comments
By granny
December 27, 2008 5:57 AM | Link to this
My 5 yr old granddaughter was upset Santa didn’t bring her a cell phone as she asked for. Electonics is what she wanted, she did get the MP3 player,clock radio that plays CD, kids lap top…
By Lance
December 28, 2008 3:44 PM | Link to this
I am sorry but 7 years old is too young for a cell phone!. For goodness sakes get through potty training these kids first. Let them get to say 12 before we have a phone permanantly implanted to their ear.