Teens changing their mobile phone loyalties

Nokia still top but gap closing

4 April 2008 14:53 GMT / By Katie Scott

The team behind the teen virtual world, Habbo, has surveyed some 58,480 of its teenage visitors on their mobile phone habits.

The respondents, who came from 31 different countries, all took part in Habbo’s Second Global Youth Survey.

It revealed that Nokia is still the favourite mobile phone manufacturer among teenagers but that its number one position is being threatened by Samsung and Sony Ericsson as teens look for more entertainment on their mobiles.

Despite still being the favoured handset in 15 of the 31 countries polled, Nokia loses out to Sony Ericsson in markets such as the UK, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland.

In all of these markets Nokia ranked first in 2006.

In the UK both Sony Ericsson and Samsung are rated higher than Nokia.

This suggests that brand loyalty to Nokia, amongst teens globally, hasn’t increased alongside Nokia’s market share, which reached 40% in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The results also showed changes in how teens actually use their mobiles.

Many are now regularly using their mobile handsets as entertainment devices, where as in the 2006 survey only 38% of teens used their handset to listen to music.

This figure has now gone up to 71%.

80% of teens in Singapore, Italy and Austria listened to music in this way, though teens in Japan and Finland listen to music on their mobiles the least.

In the UK, 78% of teens listen to music on their mobile.

And other applications are also enjoying a boom.

70% of the respondents say that they are now using their mobile to take photos and videos, which is 11% more than in 2006.

64% now play games on their mobile compared to 51% in 2006. And over a quarter of teens also use their mobile to surf the net, email and send instant messages.

But texting remains the most used phone function with 88% of teens regularly communicating via SMS.

Full tags

Phones, Statistics, Habbo, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson