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Mobile makers need to think about sex more

Analysts Gartner have put out a advisory criticising the mobile industry for being too male-centric. According to Gartner, “Sixty-eight percent of the world’s population is women and children who could benefit much from mobile technology, but the majority of mobile devices are designed by men, for men,”, with most mobiles being targeted at western adult male (age 20 to 64).

Handset makers and enterprises need to get ready to address shifting demographics, the analysts say, and take into account “gender diversity and demographics”.

I’m always vaguely suspicious when gender gets brought into design. After all, it was the idea of better targeting women that spawned the awful and embarrassing trend for bringing device out in range of sugary, teeth grinding shades of pink. Please, no more. Equally, no more diet phones or phones that predict when you ovulate. Any chance we can see gender-differentiated handsets that aren’t condescending to the market they’re trying to target?

6 COMMENTS

  1. Can we take a straw poll. Can all the women who read this blog tell us what they want from handsets that isn’t currently available. And an answer of “I am happy with the current handset and don’t need patronising condescending approaches to differentiate me” is ok. Maybe Gartner are right, or maybe they are just chasing headlines with money-making reports that have no meaning in the real world. Lets find out…..

  2. So SMSTextNews has taken to the Sun/Express tactic of wildly provocative/leading headlines, eh? 😉

    Bet this post gets the most hits ever.

    (er…I was only looking for research purposes…er…the dog clicked on the link…er….m’lud….)

    /m

  3. Steve asks with some great optimism “Can we take a straw poll. Can all the women who read this blog tell us what they want from handsets that isn

  4. See, here is the catch-22 that marketer get themselves into these days. How often are we told that evil companies are targeting certain people with there ads. Of course that is what they are doing but if the target is anything other than white males aged 25-45 they are immediately branded as some kind of corporate predator.

    I agree, companies should strive to design the product that the market will want, unfortunately too often they get in trouble for trying to do just that.

    Just me two cents 🙂

    Charles

    Vending Guy’s last blog post..How Do I Get Into Vending?

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