U.S. Teens Love Their iPhones

A survey of U.S. teenagers finds the iPhone remains hugely coveted, with 17 percent already owning an iPhone, and 37% plan on buying one in the next 6 months.

The report, from financial advisory firm Piper Jaffray, quoted in ZDNet, shows that among U.S. teens, Apple is central to their lives, with almost all of them using iTunes as their music provider.

Teen buying trends in portable devices show the rising popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod. The market share of iPhone rose to 17 percent, and, in the next six months, 37 percent of surveyed teens intend to purchase an iPhone (up from 31 percent one year ago). iTunes has remained the dominant music provider with 95 percent market share among online music services. Netflix appears well-positioned for increased DVD-by-mail usage and movie streaming, which collectively represents 63 percent of movie rental activity among teens, up from 42 percent two years ago.

In no great surprise, MP3 players are declining in popularity, but still used by some 80 per cent of teens. When the report says MP3 player it means iPod. Microsoft’s Zune and Sony tied for No. 2 in market share with 3 percent each.

It would be interesting to see a comparable survey conducted in Europe. I wonder if the iPhone would be that high up. Strangely, and certainly among U.K. teenage girls, the BlackBerry is hugely popular, thanks mainly to the popularity of BBM. As a parent of teenage daughters the near constant noise of a message alert on BBM is part of the soundtrack to our lives.

And an informal survey, reported on Shiny Shiny, suggests it might just be the BlackBerry. The site reports on a poll by goodmobilephones.co.uk which polled 901 people in the U.K. asking which they preferred, the new BlackBerry Touch or the new iPhone:

53% said they would rather have the new Blackberry Touch (codenamed the Monaco/Monza) over the new iPhone 5, expected to launch this summer, with 42% going for the Apple phone.

Like any such survey, it needs to be viewed as a straw poll and not definitive, but it does suggest that while Apple are very good at capturing the headlines, among some sectors at least, the BlackBerry remains hugely popular.