Daddy, I Want an iPhone NOW!

No big surprises here. Thirty-four percent of teens living in the U.S. own an iPhone, and 40 percent of those who don’t are expecting to buy one in the next six months.

This according to Piper Jaffray’s 23rd semiannual survey of 5,600 American teenagers, which finds continued, rising interest for the device in the high-school demographic. The percentage of teens who own an iPhone rose to 34 percent from 23 percent in fall 2011, and 17 percent in spring 2011. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who hope to own one rose from 38 percent and 37 percent during the same time periods. The likely driver of those increases: The cheaper iPhone 4 and 3GS.

Good news for Apple, since the teen demographic is a critical component of long-term growth and, as Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster notes, “historically interest in buying an iPhone has correlated to future market share gains among teens.”

Not surprisingly, tablet interest in the teen market is also on the rise, with much of it focused on the iPad. Thirty-four percent of the teens Piper surveyed said they already own a tablet, up from 29 percent from fall 2011. Of those, 70 percent had iPads, 19 percent some model of Android tablet and 11 percent a Kindle Fire.

Among teens who don’t yet own tablets, 19 percent said they planned to buy one in the next six months, with 80 percent of that group saying they planned to buy an iPad. And though there was a 3 percent decline in respondents interested in purchasing tablets between fall 2011 and spring 2012, the fact that most of them are leaning toward the iPad reveals a clear trend here. So again, good news for Apple, as Munster notes.

“We expect Apple to remain popular with younger users, which we believe could help establish a continually growing base of loyal users,” said Munster. “We believe that as Apple continues to discount prior model iPads (i.e. iPad 2 to $399) and eventually releases a smaller screen, lower priced iPad, iPad ownership will continue to rise.”