- Title: Children and Mobile Phones; A Research on Children’s Consumption Behaviors
- Project Manager: Hamidreza Shashjavani
- Executor: Zohreh Sohrabi and colleagues
- Supervisor: Development Center of Cultural and Creative Industries
- Publication Year : 2017
- Number of Pages : 280
Description:
Compared to the long history of Iranian culture, the duration of communication technologies in our lives is extremely short; yet the speed of the changes they have brought about is boundless. Until just ten years ago, the number of children who owned a mobile phone was so small that talking about a mobile-based business ecosystem in this age group seemed laughable.
With the increase in mobile SIM card penetration rates among children, corresponding job opportunities gradually emerged. Acquiring this information might have been achievable for the country’s main mobile operators, but it has never been accessible for small businesses and investors. Therefore, the CACIMA research center conducted the “Children’s Consumer Behaviors in the Mobile Domain” survey in 2017 with the support of Amin Smart Mobile Communication Company and the assistance of the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA). This survey was fundamentally designed to create a sort of information symmetry in the market of mobile-based goods and services within the children’s age segment, aiming to provide basic information for all active players in this industry. The present survey is descriptive to the extent of showing the relationships between variables; if the causes of such behaviors are desired, qualitative research must be conducted.
Based on exploratory studies and in-depth interviews conducted with industry elites, children and young people were categorized based on various characteristics including market needs into four brackets: 3 to 5 years, 6 to 11 years, 12 to 14 years, and 15 to 17 years, and the report before you follows this very categorization. The survey lasted from Mehr (September/October) to Bahman (January/February), during which 7,688 mothers, fathers, and children across the country answered our questions. The questioning and analysis were initially carried out in the major cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Karaj, and Tabriz. Then, in the next phase, other provincial capitals were added. Thus, each section of information has also been separated into three parts: “Major Cities”, “Other Cities”, and “Whole Country”. The questionnaire was divided into two parts based on whether the child used electronic devices or not. The present report merely includes a portion of the aforementioned survey’s findings, which is limited to mobile phone users.
Given that in most cases the results among major cities, provincial capitals, and the whole country were very similar, making it possible to generalize the findings of major cities to the entire country, we decided to obtain the answers to our questions using a qualitative method in Tehran. The results of this qualitative research form the second part of this report.
The managers of CACIMA believe that the more actors and investors enter this field, the larger its economy grows and the greater everyone’s share becomes. We hope that by encouraging and supporting the activists of this industry, we can achieve a significant portion of our country’s gross domestic product through the digital culture economy, much like other developed countries.