It also offers colorful phones aimed at the youth market. Sprint and Samsung now offer a wireless phone that doubles as an MP3 player, which allows users to listen to CD-quality music using only the phone. To be sure, the phones aren't cheap. We have the first MP3 player that's also a phone, we were the first to offer wireless Web, and we want teens to think of us as leading the technology. He played a game on it and then sent a message to his dad.
Sprint also provides special pricing plans to promote sales to young people.
Other American wireless companies also are targeting the teen market. Verizon Wireless, for example, markets the Timeport phone from Motorola that provides a small panel display of the wireless Web in vivid color. Another feature designed to attract young people is Verizon's aggressive rate packages. While experience in other countries suggests that selling cell phones to kids is almost a no-brainer, there are some difficulties facing wireless firms at least in the short term, said Jeff Kohler, chief executive of Reason Inc., a wireless consultancy. For one thing, the phone's screens are too small and the transmission speed is too slow, Kohler said.