YANKEE GROUP SURVEY SHOWS TEENS ARE HUGE MARKET OPPORTUNITY FOR ONLINE FIRMS.

Teens actively engaged in online shopping, news and information gathering, and downloading music and software via home Internet connections.

According to the Yankee Group's annual Technologically Advanced Family(R) (TAF(R)) Survey, 15% of teenagers (13- to 17-year-olds) indicate that shopping is one of their top three online activities. Sixty-two percent of teens cite gathering news and information online as a top-three activity. Downloading music or software is cited by 30% of 13- to 17-year-olds as one of their most frequent online activities.

"These results indicate that teens present a viable and potentially lucrative market opportunity for companies in selling products, providing information, or offering downloads of music and software," according to Paul Ritter, program manager for the Yankee Group's Internet Market Strategies research and consulting practice.

While e-mail and online chat remain by far at the top of the list of activities engaged in by 13- to 17-year-olds, "Significant potential exists for selling to the teen marketplace, and for influencing buying behavior both online and offline through Web-based branding strategies," Ritter said. "Since teens do not typically have credit cards to make online purchases, new forms of online payment mechanisms are becoming available that open up new opportunities for teens, and for companies that want to sell to them. Firms like Visa Buxx and RocketCash stand to benefit as the teen market adopts these types of alternatives to traditional credit cards," according to Ritter.

For over a decade, the Yankee Group has used the TAF(R) Survey to measure the demand for a broad assortment of communications products and services. The study sample was selected from a consumer mail panel of 450,000 nationally representative U.S. households.