MARKETING TO WOMEN

I’ll certainly be among the first in line to get the brand new 3G Apple iphone. It’s been hard enough for me not to buy one before the introduction of the new 3G version. It turns out I’m not the only woman hooked on smartphones. The New York Times mentions a big shift for the phone industry as smartphone sales to women rise at a faster pace than among men. According to Nielsen, last October, one out of four iPhone owners was a women, and by March this had already changed to one out of three. Smart phones are now smaller, look better and are cheaper, making them more appealing to women. Manufacturers once believed women wanted their gadgets only in pink and holding a mirror, but it turns out that women like toys-for-the-boys, but more logically designed and cheaper.

The Telegraph also published an article on the ‘gadget revolution’ caused by tech-savy women. According to Sony Ericsson, women spend more money on gadgets than shoes (!) - on average, $764 a year.

The New York Times article also mentions that phone makers increasingly see women as the path to the entire household and start marketing to women. Ads for Blackberry have started to turn up in women’s magazines such as Elle, Martha Stewart Living and Oprah Winfrey’s O. The Blackberry Pearl is one of their best selling phones (and rightly so!).

Women use their smartphones to organize their business and family life. According to Nielsen, two-thirds of women with smartphones say they use them primarily for pleasure rather than business Comparing this to 42 percent among men probably shows that either men just spend more time working or women communicate a lot more about the household. Or both?