Teens love Nike, Apple, Instagram: Facebook? Not so much
High tech? High fashion? High calories? Kids these days…
Piper Jaffray is out with its semi-annual “Taking Stock with Teens” report, which looks at the spending and shopping habits of teenagers. More than 7,000 teeenagers were surveyed. The average age was 16 years old.
The report found teens typically get more than 2/3 of their spending money from their parents. A growing proportion of their money is going to food. They spend 20% of their money on it. That’s up from 15% a decade ago. Top brands include Starbucks (SBUX), Chipotle (CMG) and McDonald’s (MCD).
“On the coasts, I think McDonald’s is looked at as this bad, evil conglomerate that serves you fake food,” says Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Aaron Task. “But in real America, they love McDonald’s...and teens on lower incomes they love going to McDonald's because you can get a lot of calories for cheap.”
Teens spend the most money on clothes, a total of 21% of their cash. Nike (NKE), American Eagle (AEO) and Forever 21 were the favorite clothing brands among the teens surveyed in the poll. Discount retailer TJ Maxx (TJX) made the list as a top clothing brand as well for the first time.
Nike is connecting with the kids outside the shopping mall, too. The athletic apparel giant was also revealed as the top website. “Nike is obviously doing something right with the teens,” says Task. “They have the mindshare and the market share.”
While non-athletic retailers like American Eagle and Forever 21 are on the rise with teens, Abercrombie is trending down. Abercrombie used to be a leading brand among teenagers but the company and its stock price have taken a hit in recent years. Abercrombie has “a major turnaround effort to try to pull off.” Task says, “It’s a very difficult thing to do. I mean retail and clothing retail are all tough. Clothing that’s geared toward teens is probably the toughest segment of all because they are incredibly fickle.”
As for technology, kids love Apple (AAPL). More than two-thirds have an iPhone. Only 16% said they were interested in the Apple watch. However, the Piper Jaffray study was conducted before the watch was released.
As for social networks, Facebook (FB) is falling out of favor with teens according to the report. Instagram was tops.
