Pinoy kids’ spending power rises by P5B

Filipino kids’ spending power and their apparent fixation with the Internet heightened last year, according to a study conducted by the country’s top TV channel for children. Based on research conducted in 2008 by Cartoon Network, a unit of US-based Turner Broadcasting System Inc., Filipino kids had a total spending power of P42 billion from pocket money (P34.5-billion) and gift money (P7.6 billion) alone.

The amount increased by P5 billion, or 13.5 percent, from Filipino kids’ P37-billion wealth in 2007.

“In the Philippines, the study recognizes that the average pocket money that a kid receives per week is P197. That’s equivalent to P10,244 per annum,” said Jeremy Carr, the Turner vice president for entertainment advertising sales.

“Kids also receive gifts,” he added. “They receive about P2,130 per annum. So if you aggregate all of that money, we’re talking about quite a large spending power.”

The study was conducted on some 3.7 million Filipinos age 7 to 14 in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao.

Boon to channel

The Turner official said that kids’ spending power, coupled with their influence on their parents’ pockets, was a market that has helped Cartoon Network maintain its standing as the No. 1 kids’ channel in the Philippines.

The Cartoon Network study also found that Filipino kids are using the Internet more, out-pacing listening to music and reading a nonschool book as a daily activity. Watching TV, however, remained the favorite past time of kids in the country.

Majority of kids using the Internet use the medium for games and watching videos than schoolwork.

Kids with mobiles

Besides the Internet, the number of children owning mobile phones has also risen, growing more than three-folds to 38 percent of those surveyed compared with five years ago.

Despite Filipino kids’ growing appetite for new technology, the Turner executive said that he does not expect this to supplant traditional media altogether.

“TV is still a dominant space and it’s still definitely growing in terms of its viewers but what we are seeing with media fragmentation when it comes to kids space and certainly other genres as well more people are consuming more media, not necessarily less of one,” Carr said.  –EUAN PAULO C. AÑONUEVO REPORTER, Manila Times