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. In the Asia-Pacific region, spending by youth on mobile data services reached $15.2 bln in 2004, and the forecast growth rate for revenues is estimated at 15.3% annually from 2004 to 2010.
Revenue generated from SMS swelled 30.1% in 2004 and is likely to continue growing over the next two years. 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%.