Earlier today, I touched on mobile device demographics showing that Apple by and large rules the mobile device roost (the iPod Touch more so than the iPhone).
Here’s some more interesting stats from Gizmodo, sourced from AdMob’s January mobile metrics report. Fully 65% of the iPod Touch’s owners are 17 or younger, versus only 13% for the iPhone.
This is only natural, of course; non-wealthy parents are going to be somewhat reluctant to foot the $70/mo smartphone service plan bill for an iPhone when an iPod Touch does most of the same things. (In fact, one of my uncles emailed me a question once about getting such a device for his son.)
Given that iPod Touches account for over half of Apple’s mobile devices, this means that over 40% of all iPhoneOS devices currently seeing mobile use are in the hands of teenagers.
The implications of this demographic for publishers and e-book vendors should be obvious. The younger generation tend to be more willing than older folks to read off of screens, after all, and here millions of e-book capable devices are in their hands. Even if J.K. Rowling firmly refuses to license Harry Potter e-books, there are plenty of other young-adult titles that could be promoted.
But kids are not going to have the disposable income of their parents, and not all of them will be able to convince their parents to buy them things. (Indeed, other charts in the Gizmodo article suggest that iPod Touch users download more apps than iPhone users, but the majority of them are free.) So it would seem that keeping prices reasonable would be a good way to entice this crowd to buy.
