Hispanic telecom spending to further increase

The Insight Research Corporation' new study reports that minorities will spend $59.8 billion on telecommunications services in 2008, accounting for over one-third of all residential telecom expenditures. Hispanics will spend the most, the report says.

Other findings:

-- 65.5 percent of all Hispanic respondents now have cell phones,

-- Hispanics’ average monthly household expenditures on cell phone service was more than 80 percent higher than the average household spend on wireline services,

-- Of those Hispanics that own a cell phone, nearly four in five had a post-paid contract. Robert

Rosenberg, Insight Research, says that while the market is critical, “.... cell phone companies that now spend millions of dollars on undifferentiated Spanish-speaking advertising campaigns that blanket the Latino community have missed the boat. The Hispanic community must be addressed with nuanced messaging appropriate to its internal diversity or those cell phone carriers simply won’t survive."