U.S. Mobile Teen and Adult Consumer Survey, 4Q07: Gender and Ethnicity Results

This IDC study analyzes the combined responses of nearly 4,200 wireless subscribers and customers regarding their usage patterns and spending habits on mobile data services, with particular emphasis on mobile entertainment service/content types such as ringtones, games, mobile TV/video, full track music, and ringback tones. Results are cut by gender and ethnicity (African-Americans, Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, Caucasians, and Latinos/Hispanics). At a high level, Caucasians were found to be less likely to use or subscribe to most mobile entertainment services and content types relative to minority groups.

"It's interesting how divergent certain types of activities are between ethnic groups, such as full track sideloading, which was more popular among minority communities," says Lewis Ward, research manager of the Mobile Consumer Services: Entertainment service. "While the fact that males overindexed for mobile TV/video usage and preferred sports video clips may not be a shock, that ringback tone adoption skewed female and African-American and Latino by a significant margin may raise some eyebrows."