Spending on and by teenagers will reach $208.7 billion in 2011, up from $189.7 billion in 2006, according to Packaged Facts' "The Teens Market in the US" report. The spending increase is expected despite an estimated 3% decline in the 12-to-17-year-old population by 2011.


Teen spending will grow 3.5% annually to $91.1 billion in 2011, from $79.7 billion in 2006. Family spending on teens during the same period will grow 7% to $117.6 billion in 2011, from $110 billion in 2006.



The study estimates the current number of teens in the US at 25.6 million.

The study also contained an analysis of Simmons Market Research Bureau data, which found slightly over a quarter of all teens surveyed had placed an online order in the previous three months.

More than half of teen respondents said the Internet had changed the way they spent their free time. Nearly one out of three said the Internet was their main source of entertainment.

Don Montuori of Packaged Facts said, "Teens living in 2007 have never known a world without personal computers and the Internet. Teens are in the vanguard of the digital revolution in the media and marketing worlds, and they're helping to change the way media, marketing and advertising executives approach the American consumer."

Underscoring the central place of the PC in teen lives, a March 2007 study by the Business Software Alliance and Harris Interactive found that 41% of teens considered the home computer the most important consumer electronic device used on a regular basis. TV was a distant also-ran by comparison, with only 8% of teens naming it as the most important consumer electronic device.