Teens Love iPhone and Apple Watch, But Not Apple Music and Apple TV+

[MacRumors]

The iPhone continues to be overwhelmingly popular with teens, according to Piper Sandler's biannual teen survey. 85 percent of U.S. teens surveyed own an iPhone, and 86 percent plan to purchase an iPhone as their next smartphone.

While the iPhone is still the most popular smartphone among teens, ownership is down from the October 2023 survey where 87 percent of teens owned an iPhone and 88 percent planned to purchase one.

Both the 85% iPhone ownership and 86% intention to purchase an iPhone metrics are near record highs for our survey but down from record levels in 2021. We believe the elevated penetration and purchase intention are important given the mature premium smartphone market. Additionally, trends towards premium tier phones are encouraging as the company continues to introduce new iPhones proving the overall stickiness of the product portfolio. Finally, positive trends in services could follow, as the install base for Apple hardware continues to grow.

Apple's dominance in the teen market is of particular interest right now because it is one metric that the U.S. Department of Justice is targeting in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple.

The DoJ has suggested that Apple's ownership of the U.S. smartphone market causes "social stigma, exclusion, and blame" for non-iPhone users, with "green bubble" chats and issues between iPhone and Android message users cited as a specific example. The DoJ claims that this is "particularly powerful" for teenagers, and that "social pressure" causes teens to switch to the iPhone.

The antitrust lawsuit also suggests that Apple's marketshare among "key demographics" like "younger audiences" is an issue that gives Apple too much power over the smartphone ecosystem.

As for the Apple Watch, 34 percent of teens reported using an Apple Watch, with no change from last fall. Intent to buy an Apple Watch was up three percent, however, with 13 percent of teens planning to buy one in the next six months. Only 39.4 percent of teens said they own a smart watch, so teens are also overwhelmingly preferring the Apple Watch to other smart watch brands. The Apple Watch was the top watch brand, with Rolex and Casio coming in second and third, respectively.

Teens prefer Spotify as their music service, and nearly two-thirds of teens surveyed said Spotify is their preferred service. Just over 30 percent of teens said they use Apple Music. Apple TV+ is not popular with teen audiences, and less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis. Comparatively, over 30 percent of teens watch Netflix daily, and close to 30 percent watch YouTube.

Apple Pay was the most popular payment platform with 44 percent of teens using it in the last month, but Cash app and Venmo are preferred for peer-to-peer money transfers.

Piper Sandler surveyed 6,020 teens across 47 U.S. states for its spring 2024 report.

Article Link: Teens Love iPhone and Apple Watch, But Not Apple Music and Apple TV+

 

[fantasyname_qwertz]

one time I couldn't find the button to loop a song.

 

[neuropsychguy]

"less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis. Comparatively, over 30 percent of teens watch Netflix regularly"

Are 30% of teens watching Netflix daily or just regularly? If that's not daily, it's not fair to compare to "daily" watching of Apple TV+. If the Netflix is daily, that should be clarified in the article.

 

[dustin_]

spotify is slowly killing themselves by raising prices while moving more previously free features behind their paid tier. i see more moving over to apple music in the future.

 

[orangeadrenaline]

I must be a teen as I despise subscription services. I am guessing some of the preference for Spotify and Netflix are due to the parents/guardians already paying for those services that were established before Apple's offerings (inertia).

 

[swingerofbirch]

I have a smartphone but I'm a luddite and don't really use it for anything other than phone calls and photos.

So I use Spotify on my Mac and maybe it's not the same as the phone, but the software is just so much better. I opened Apple Music the other day just out of curiosity because I hadn't used it in so long, and it seems so clinical and inorganic for a music app compared to Spotify. And Apple had such a lead with the original iTunes and Music Store. I never understood why they needed Beats to begin with. iTunes was nicer back when it came out than Apple Music (the app) is now over twenty years ago, and the iTunes Music Store would have been a perfect way to browse a streaming service. I don't get why they couldn't have just changed the Buy button to a Play button and let you drag and drop from the previous "store" to your playlists. But they started from scratch, and I never really got it. Spotify has a great interface and "magical" (to borrow Apple's phrase) algorithms for picking music I like.

 

[PsykX]

Does anyone actually love Apple TV+?

It's better than at launch, by far, but it's the lightest platform of all. The content is stagnant.

I think most people who have TV+ also have another service, let it be cable or Netflix or Disney or HBO. And I think most people try to limit themselves to 1 subscription at a time.

So all in all, Apple TV+ is not a desirable service.

-

As for Apple Music, there's no free tier. I didn't have any money when I was a teenager and it was impossible to get a credit card before 18. I suspect this is why they go with Spotify by default. Spotify then becomes a trend amongst teenagers and then the trend is almost irreversible.

 

[Reason077]

Apple TV+ is a beautiful and well-designed platform/app, but (with a few notable exceptions) the content is just so bland and mediocre compared to what you can find on competitors.

Disney+ and (especially) Amazon Prime have glitchy and awkward UX at times, but there’s far more stuff on there that I actually want to watch. Can always find something new and interesting, where as the Apple TV+ selection rarely changes much.

Apple relies too much on its own in-house productions, which produces occasional hits but a lot of bland and forgettable stuff. Needs more content that isn’t produced by Apple!

 

[sw1tcher]

"less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis. Comparatively, over 30 percent of teens watch Netflix regularly"

Are 30% of teens watching Netflix daily or just regularly? If that's not daily, it's not fair to compare to "daily" watching of Apple TV+. If the Netflix is daily, that should be clarified in the article.

Netflix is daily as well.

From the Piper Sandler survey:

Teens spend 29% of daily video consumption on Netflix (-210 bps vs. spring '23) and 27% on YouTube (-130 bps vs. spring '23).

 

[antnythr]

86 percent plan to purchase an ‌iPhone‌ as their next smartphone

They certainly plan to ask their parents for one.

 

[Lamborrari]

“The Apple Watch was the top watch brand, with Rolex and Casio coming in second and third, respectively.”

You know something is either wrong with teenagers these days or with the survey itself if more teenagers reported using Rolexes than Casios.

 

[randolorian]

" causes "social stigma, exclusion, and blame [in teens]". Uhh, isn't that all of social media? Why don't we have the US DoJ doing something about that?

 

[iLLucionist]

Initially I thought too TV+ content was lacking. Although everybody has their own taste, they are consistently adding good new shows now, though they cinematic movies (like Napoleon) are poorly received.

One advantage of TV+ in my view is that it’s less likely that Apple shows get sold off, as is common with Netflix, HBO and the likes.

 

[cateye]

spotify is slowly killing themselves by raising prices while moving more previously free features behind their paid tier. i see more moving over to apple music in the future.

Or, you know, maybe genuinely people prefer it. Apple has sent me 17 months worth (so far) of free Apple Music trials. Every so often I get one via email, "don't you miss us?" with another 1, 2, or (rarely) 5 months. Each time I trial it, and come away wondering how anyone can tolerate just how bad it is. I primarily use Spotify, I also use YouTube Music, and in the past have also used Tidal. I'd choose any of them over Apple Music, regardless of price.

Others may feel differently, and that's OK. But this incessant need to somehow find some explanation why someone, anyone, would prefer a non-Apple service is bonkers. Who cares? If you like Apple Music, that's awesome. I hope it does everything you need it to. I made the same choice to go with someone else and feel no need to reevaluate that.

Does anyone actually love Apple TV+?

Oh god. Be ready to be lectured by pious.

 

[BastardSheep]

> Apple TV+ is not popular with teen audiences, and less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis.

I watch a metric %$#load of TV & movies. I don't watch AppleTV+ on a daily basis. Weekly when there's new things releasing that interest me (right now there isn't).

I think their metric was a bit optimistic.

As for other things, I'm surprised by Spotify being more popular. I used to use it because it had desktop apps with more compatibility way back when. This is changing now with very good desktop apps for both mac & windows. But the main reason I switched to Apple Music was because it just sounded that much better. I felt that much more satisfied listening to it.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

I much prefer Apple Music over Spotify - probably because of how seamlessly it integrates with the Apple 🍎 ecosystem for Siri requests (with HomePods) Apple’s new Journaling app etc.

That being said, competition is the best thing for consumers and Apple obviously has deep pockets for which to compete (to catch up to Spotify) on this preferability ranking and are in a much better position to be the underdog than a (sometimes money losing) Spotify - haven’t checked Spotify’s financials lately but if anything, they surely are not a massively profitable company

 

[coffeemilktea]

Apple TV+ is not popular with teen audiences, and less than five percent of teens said they watch it on a daily basis.

Is there anything actually, uh, you know... good that's exclusive to Apple TV? Ted Lasso is probably the only thing I can think of.

Apple's ownership of the U.S. smartphone market causes "social stigma, exclusion, and blame" for non-iPhone users, with "green bubble" chats and issues between iPhone and Android message users cited as a specific example

I think the blue bubble/green bubble thing is overblown. Sure, being a green bubble and having all the technical issues with poor compression, etc. is bad.

But the real stigma is that someone had all this money and chose to buy an Android phone. It's like you could have chosen to wear something cool like Converse shoes, but instead you chose to wear something unfashionable.

 

[nuff_said]

spotify is slowly killing themselves by raising prices while moving more previously free features behind their paid tier. i see more moving over to apple music in the future.

While I haven’t seen this with Spotify - don’t use it often enough to justify the subscription - I’ve seen it already twice with Amazon Music and Amazon Video. They moved offline playlists and commercial free streaming behind paywalls. My guess is this will become common practice in the future with all subscription plans.

 

[oofio2461]

I'm sure that students prefer free plans, which Apple Music does not, and spotify has.

 

[cateye]

I must be a teen as I despise subscription services.

No, that makes you an outlier.

 

[dustin_]

But this incessant need to somehow find some explanation why someone, anyone, would prefer a non-Apple service is bonkers.

where did i do that?

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Proof that Apple's services are terrible

 

[EricNau]

Does anyone actually love Apple Music? Or do we all just put up with it? After the Apple Podcasts app it's the slowest, buggiest app on my phone. And the experience only gets worse when I use it with a HomePod.

It's bundled with Apple One so I can't justify paying for Spotify, but I truly find it barely usable, and I've spent more hours troubleshooting it than I care to think about.

 

[rp2011]

Not a teen but I have never been a fan of Apple Music. I tend to delete it as it is far too aggressive and it always seems to be up and running even if I don't want it to be like malware. When you scroll up to swipe away running programs it is sometimes not even there, making it even more frustrating. It freaks my wife out when it is running on her devices without her explicit direction. I tell everyone it is malware-plain and simple. I really do hate the thing.

 

[dannyyankou]

I believe the bit about Apple TV+

But I notice more young people switching to Apple Music from Spotify. Maybe that's anecdotal.

In the end though, Spotify offers an option to stream for free and Apple Music doesn't. So people with not a lot of money will mostly go with the free option. If Apple really wants to compete with Spotify, they should introduce an ad-supported tier