With rising numbers and tech savvy, Latino youth are the future of mobile, which is where the technology industry, in general, has the most growth potential.
That's according to an extensive review of studies by Forbes contributor and CEO of the Center for Hispanic Leadership, Glenn Llopis, who listed off the reasons why marketers need to get their act together and do more than Spanish language advertising in order to reach a Latino audience.
But that (highly recommended) article included an important piece of information for the technology industry as well: more than half of Hispanics, according to a 2012 Hispanic Mobile Consumer Trends Study by Zpryme Research & Consulting, prefer mobile devices as their primary source for entertainment.
Right now, the "mobile devices" used to access entertainment include a laptop/PC. While 47 percent of Latinos surveyed said they would turn on the television to get entertainment, about 35 said they used the laptop or PC, followed by 12 percent responding "on my cell phone" and six percent saying they used tablets for entertainment.
But in the same survey, the most likely electronic device for the majority of Latinos to buy in the next six months was a smartphone. At 24 percent, smartphones led all other possible mobile devices.
Llopis had a term for what's driving Hispanic smartphone ownership, and what will drive the mobile industry in the coming years: New Generation Latinos, or NGLs for short. According to Forbes, "U.S Hispanics are early adopters and leading users of online and mobile technology and their usage continues to soar faster than the general marketplace. Driven by NGLs, 75 percent of U.S. Latinos currently own smartphones."
Other surveys, including a Pew study reported by Latinos Post earlier this summer, have a lower percentage of Latino smartphone ownership. However, that same Pew study still stated that Hispanic smartphone ownership was at 60 percent, which is higher than the national average, at 56 percent. And with one in five teens in the U.S. being Hispanic currently, and that demographic predicted to grow by 62 percent by the close of the decade, young, tech-savvy Latinos will only grow in consumer purchasing power.
So far, according to Forbes, there are three major tech companies that are seeing the rise of young Latinos and Latinas and responding to it: Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Pandora. Verizon Wireless just partnered with Jennifer Lopez to launch "Viva Movil," a Latina-focused wireless service and boutique based in Brooklyn, New York. And Pandora and T-Mobile are partnering up to promote Hispanic artists and reach young Latinos, huge numbers of which are listening to internet-based smartphone-friendly radio services for their music.
Senior Marketing Manager at T-Mobile U.S., Gustavo Peña, had this to say about their initiative:
"Hispanics have tended to live in multi-generational households, where the language spoken at home is usually Spanish. Through Spanish-language advertising alone, you could reach approximately 75%-80% of the Hispanic population. But things are changing. As of 2012, for the first time, there were more U.S.-born Hispanics than immigrant Hispanics, and the need to reach English-speaking Hispanics in a cost-effective way is increasing."
The need to realize this huge demographic and reach out to them - especially in mobile tech - is also increasing. As smartphones and tablets outpace PCs, which several reports are saying is happening and will continue to happen, the growing population of young, internet-empowered, mobile Latinos will be technology companies' go-to audience in the coming years.