what those young customers don’t want: phones that look like toys.
They would rather have something sleek like adults use, or the
music-playing model clipped to the waistband of the teenage neighbor’s baggy
jeans.
“I really want the Chocolate,” 12-year-old Ashley Paitich of Highland Park
said of the popular music phone sold at Verizon Wireless stores. “I like how
the Chocolate comes in different colors, like green or white. And I really
like the way it slides up.”
Instead, she’ll continue to use her Motorola Slvr until she can negotiate a
new deal with her mom. But her phone certainly won’t look like the models that
have been designed for kids, such as the Firefly or the Migo.
Those phones, targeted at children 8 to 12, will no longer be sold in the
stores of the nation’s two largest wireless carriers. In recent weeks,
Cingular and Verizon have pulled the Firefly and Migo from store displays.
Instead, the carriers will suggest to parents who want phones for their
children to buy models featuring text messaging, GPS locater services and play
music.
“Kids are looking for more full features,” said Carolyn Schamberger a
spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless. “We don’t have a phone specifically for
tweens now. Instead, we offer a line-up of phones that may be of interest,
like the Chocolate.”
The strategy is an indication of how the phone market for tweens, which is
growing at a double-digit rate, is quickly evolving. Just two years ago, when
kid-specific products started appearing on store shelves, they were hailed as
simple devices that parents needn’t worry about because the phones have
buttons to make only approved calls and receive those only from programmed
numbers, like a parent’s phone.
That product still has a niche but it is for 8-year-olds or younger, said
Julie Ask, a wireless analyst with Jupiter Research, who is completing a
report titled “Selling Cell Phones to Second Graders.”
“The biggest challenge with kids under 9 is that “81 percent of their
parents say their child is too young to have a phone,” Ask said.
But when kids get older, starting about 10 or 11, things change
dramatically, she said, with sales growing at “high-double digit rates”
annually. “Those kids want a sophisticated phone.”
That is putting pressure on Lincolnshire’s Firefly Mobile, which makes and
sells a five-button phone aimed at tweens.
The phone can still be bought on Cingular’s Web site. It had been offered
at Cingular stores since November 2005, said Patrick Marry, Firefly’s chief
executive.
Cingular would not comment on the Firefly decision, but a spokesman said
the firm is committed to the youth market through other offerings.
Marry said the Cingular move will not have much impact on Firefly sales
because the biggest retail outlet for his product is Target Corp. “That’s
where moms take their kids to shop, not a wireless store,” he said. “And
that’s where we really focus on our efforts. The vast majority of our
distribution in the last year and a half comes from other retailers.”
The private company would not disclose sales, but Marry said he expects
2007 to be better than last year. Nonetheless, Firefly will introduce two new
phones before the holiday season to address market changes.
“We see the age shifting younger and younger. When we started, we saw the
market as 8-to-12-year-olds,” Marry said. “Now it’s shifting to younger kids,
as early as 5 years old.”
One new model may look similar to the current product, with a few buttons
programmed by parents to make and receive pre-approved calls, but the other
phone will have more features to appeal to older kids, ranging from 8 to 13.
More Top Picks Best Universal Travel Adapters
Meanwhile, Firefly will have to contend with a new player in the field,
Kajeet Inc., which is rolling out its product in Best Buy stores nationwide.
Unlike Firefly, which manufactures its five-button phone, Maryland’s Kajeet
uses existing models from LG and the Sanyo Katana, a big seller for Sprint
Nextel Corp.
“Eleven years ago, I saw a company in Israel launch a four-button kiddie
phone,” said Daniel Neal, Kajeet’s CEO. “I thought it was brilliant, until I
showed my kids.”
Researching the Kajeet product line, “we really involved kids,” he said.
“They know more about technology and understand how it works much faster than
their parents. They want the real deal.”
Neal said the sweet spot for the market is between 11 and 14 years old. He
said a third of all 8- to 14-year-olds already have a mobile phone, with 60
percent of that figure representing the older kids.
“In three years that number will double, and all 14-year-olds will have a
phone,” he said.
Kajeet phones feature text messaging, a Google Maps application, games,
ring tones and other content. While the phones have a Web browser, the content
found on the Internet comes from a “walled garden” controlled by Kajeet, not
the open Internet. That means the kids can’t download questionable content,
Neal said.
“The market is definitely hot for tweens,” Ask said. “But the question is,
what are you selling to them? They want something like the older kid next
door.”
———-
[email protected]