Latinos Spent $5 Billion On Mobile Devices During The Holidays

If you’re Latino and you’re reading this on your fancy-shmancy new iPad, you’re not alone.

A survey of Latino holiday spending estimates that Latinos may have spent up to $5 billion on mobile devices. That merits repeating, Latinos spent up to $5 billion on mobile phones and tablets over the holidays. NBC Latino reports that

Zpryme Research and Consulting surveyed over 500 Latinos on their mood as consumers and intentions to spend money during the holidays and overwhelmingly found a desire to spend.

One out of four Hispanics intended to spend $251 to $1,000 on mobile devices and Latinos surveyed as the most likely to buy tablet devices (19 percent) and smartphones (19 percent).

The finding points to an intersection of many things: the increasing success of Latinos in the U.S., the desire to be a part of the digital revolution, the relative youth of the Latino community, the affordability of new devices and the inherent cultural tradition of connectivity.

“Latinos in general have always been early mobile technology adopters, over-indexing in the purchase and usage of mobile devices,” (TuTecnologia founder Ariel) Coro says. “The smartphone is the Swiss Army knife of technology, as it allows one to communicate, interact on social media, browse the web, take and share pictures and videos and install easy to use apps for a myriad of functions.”

This bodes well for marketers and politicians who have been trying to find the best way to reach Latino consumers. Some, though, have already figured it out.

The few companies that consistently devoted more than 25 percent of their advertising budgets to Latino media saw sustained revenue growth over a five-year period, according to the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies.