Local children have Rs21.5b to spend: Cartoon Network

Pakistan’s children have a total spending power of Rs21.45 billion, a Cartoon Network survey revealed. Some 87 per cent of the children receive gift money amounting to Rs4.98 billion while 89 per cent receive pocket money amounting to Rs16.47 billion.

The network recently surveyed seven to 14-year-old population of 3.9 million kids from seven cities.

The Cartoon Network has surveyed the trends, attitudes and behaviour of 1,783 kids aged seven to 14 and their parents in Pakistan. “This year’s New Generations™ 2010 survey has deepened our understanding of the lifestyles, preferences and aspirations of Pakistani kids,” says its Marketing and Research Vice President for Asia-Pacific, Duncan Morris.

The American cable television network, which primarily shows animated programming, continues to build on the wealth of information about kids in Pakistan that it has tracked over the past five years, according to their Sales Director, Fawad Qureshi.

He added that the study was acknowledged as the leading source of what kids are thinking today and offers immense value to the marketing and media industries.

The majority of the interviewed children considered watching television to be their favourite pastime.

The New Generations™ Pakistan was launched in 2006 and is the largest children’s lifestyle survey in the country. The study helps connect the dots for today’s young kids’ preferences and throws up interesting trends which help the network and the industry at large understand this audience better.

The survey also discovered that Pakistani children’s displayed a higher degree of technology awareness since the last survey with 67 per cent being aware of a digicam; 51 per cent knowing what a 3G mobile phone was; 44 per cent being aware of MP3 players; 26 per cent being familiar with a Sony Playstation and 17 per cent of them knowing what an Apple iPod was.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11th, 2010.