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Apple's music, tablet dominance: What the teens say

Apple's dominance in online music has gone unchecked as iTunes nears the saturation point among teens with a 95 percent market share. The rub: The majority of teens won't pay for music, according to a Piper Jaffray survey.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Apple's dominance in online music has gone unchecked as iTunes nears the saturation point among teens with a 95 percent market share. The rub: The majority of teens won't pay for music, according to a Piper Jaffray survey.

The Piper Jaffray survey, which queried 4,500 students, found that Apple's product cycle has a lot of growth left. Typically, teen attitudes about Apple are a good indicator of future market share.

Here's what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster found:

  • 37 percent of teens planned on buying an iPhone in the next six months, an all-time high in Piper Jaffray's bi-annual survey. 17 percent of teens owned an iPhone, up from 14 percent six months ago.
  • Apple's market share in portable media players was 86 percent, up from 78 percent six months ago. However, 80 percent of students had a portable media player, a low since 2007. Translation: The iPhone has trumped the standalone iPod. For what it's worth, Microsoft's Zune and Sony had tied for No. 2 in market share with 3 percent each.
  • 22 percent of students owned a tablet or had one in their house and another 20 percent expect to buy a tablet in the next six months.
  • 65 percent are using peer-to-peer music sharing networks to get their music and the overall percentage of students downloading music sat at 77 percent.

Here's a look at the key stats:

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