January 19th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »
Belgian consumer authority OIVO has released a report that details mobile usage under teens. According to the report, 90% of the teenagers (10-17 yr) own a mobile phone.
The non-owners are mainly living outside of metropolitan areas or in the age group of ten years old (35%) and 11 years old (27%). At age 17, 98% of the teenagers own a mobile phone. The biggest increase in cellphone ownership since the last study in 2007 is amongst the 10 (+20%) and 11 (+15%) year olds. 35% of the teenagers bought their own phone. 60% of them received their phone from their parents.
While the kids don’t have the legal age to own a subscription, only 79% of the mobile phones in these age groups are based on a prepaid card. Most of the prepaid cards (88%) can be found with kids in lower social classes. In 70% of the cases, the parents pay for the costs of a mobile phone.
When it comes to mobile usage, calling and sending SMS texts are by far the most popular activities. Only 10 year olds and 11 year olds say they spend more time on a mobile game then on making a call. On average, teenagers launch five game sessions per week.
Downloading mobile games (18%) is also still behind as most teenagers prefer to download ringtones (27%). Downloading mobile games is more popular with the French speaking Belgian teens (23%) then the Dutch speaking ones (15%). Also the lower social classes download less games then the higher social classes.
Nearly one out of four teenagers (23%) experienced problems while downloading mobile games and ringtones. Those problem cases are mainly under ten year olds and kids with lower education.
The full PDF can be downloaded here, but it is Dutch.
