iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Wednesday, October 8, 2008
News Category: Digital Media

Piper Jaffray has released the results of its 16th bi-annual Teen Survey, which asks a sampling of high school students about their interest and buying patterns in the realms of MP3 players, online music stores, and music-playing cellphones. When asked about the iPhone 8 percent of the 769 participants said they already owned one, with another 22 percent saying they planned on purchasing an iPhone in the next 6 months. Those responses are up from Jaffray’s April survey, in which only 6 percent of students said they had an iPhone, and only 9 percent said they planned on purchasing one in the next half-year.

When asked about MP3 players, 87 percent of students said they owned at least one, with 84 percent of those owning an iPod — down from 86 percent in the April survey. Perhaps more interesting is the question of planned purchases; only 34% of respondents said they plan on purchasing a MP3 player in the next 12 months, and while 79 percent of those said they planned on purchasing an iPod (down from 80% in April), another 15 percent said they were planning to purchase a Microsoft Zune, the highest response for that player since its initial release.

Finally, when asked about online music stores, only 40 percent of students said they purchased music online, while 60 percent said they uses P2P file sharing networks to get their music. Out of the 40 percent who do purchase music online, however, 93 percent said they use iTunes, up from 81 percent in the April survey and 79 percent from a year ago. Interestingly, while 18 percent of respondents said they would consider paying $0.99 per song to purchase music, more than twice that many (37 percent) said they would consider paying $15 a month for a subscription service. According to Piper, the average age of students participating in the survey was 16.2 years old, with 53 percent males and 47 percent females.