Asian youth driving region's mobile data market

May 7, 2005

The youth market in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming a significant driver for growth in the region's mobile phone market, reports In-Stat. Around 10-15% of all youth disposable income is spent on mobile products in developed countries, displacing spending on traditional youth products like clothing, toys, and comic books, etc., the high-tech market research firm says. In the Asia-Pacific region, spending by youth on mobile data services reached $15.2 billion in 2004, and the forecast growth rate for revenues is estimated at 15.3% annually from 2004 to 2010.

Messaging services will continue to remain most popular in the youth market in the near term. Revenue generated from SMS swelled 30.1% in 2004 and is likely to continue growing over the next two years.

A recent report by In-Stat found the following:

- Key applications for Asia-Pacific mobile youth include messaging, ring-tones, wallpapers, logos, games, music and videos.

- Messaging accounted for 40.3% of Asian Mobile Youth data expenditures in 2004.

- Ringtones, screensavers and wallpaper accounted for another 29.7% of the youth market followed by games at 9.7% and video, still nascent, at 6.5%.

In-Stat report, Asian Youth Mobile Trends: Devices, Data, and Multimedia, covers the Asia-Pacific mobile communications market with an emphasis on the impact of the region's youth market segment. It includes mobile data market forecasts for the total Asia-Pacific market and for the youth segment from 2004-2010. It also contains carrier profiles and analysis of market opportunities and trends in the youth market.