Piper Sandler’s 44th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey reveals that iPhone and Apple Watch are popular devices amongst teens.
For its semi-annual research project, Piper Sandler collects data from 14,500 high school teenagers with an average age of 15.8 years across the U.S. to know their fashion trends, technology, discretionary spending patterns, media preference, and more. The firm has surveyed over 233,400 teens and collected over 56.5 million data points since the project’s launch in 2001.
Use of VR devices declines ahead of Apple’s mixed-reality headset launch
The tech giant’s smartwatch has become one of the successful products, along with iPhone. According to the report, “87% of teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone; 31% of teens own an Apple Watch”. By any standard, the stats are very impressive for the Cupertino tech company.
Apple Watch ownership has increased by 3% from spring 2021 when it was 28%. At the time, Ped30 noted that “only 34% of teens own a smartwatch, meaning Apple controls ~84% of the market.”
Counterpoint research revealed that Apple Watch dominated the smartwatch segment with a 29.3% share and 8% Y-o-Y growth in Q2, 2022. A recent report from New York Times claimed that parents were willing to buy an Apple Watch for their children as young as 5 years old.
However, iPhone ownership saw a 1% decline from spring 2021 to spring 2022.
Both the 88% iPhone ownership and 90% intention to purchase an iPhone metrics are record highs for our survey, up from 85% and 88%, respectively, in Spring-20.
Furthermore, the report also revealed that the weekly usage of VR devices has dropped from 17% in last spring to 14% this year and 26% of teens own a VR device (flat vs. Spring 2022). The states reveal that the teen demographic is not hugely interested in VR devices as Apple and Meta are about to launch new mixed-reality headsets.
However, Ped30 is not convinced with the representation in the latest survey. The publisher wrote, “my take: In its 21st year, this comprehensive survey continues to oversample North America’s well-heeled suburbs. It’s best for capturing trends.”
