Apple reportedly too popular to be cool with teenage crowd

The teenagers of the world are not an easy bunch to please. Do something cool with your business, and chances are teenagers will be some of the first to catch on, but become too popular and the teenagers are the first that will drop support for your brand. That's apparently the predicament Apple now finds itself in, as Buzz Marketing Group tells Forbes that Apple's iDevices are losing ground with the teenage demographic.

Instead of Apple products, Buzz Marketing – a youth marketing firm – says teenagers are going crazy for Samsung's Galaxy line and Microsoft Surface these days. "Teens are telling us Apple is done," the company's Tina Wells said. "Apple has done a great job of embracing Gen X and older [Millennials], but I don't think they are connecting with Millennial kids. [They're] all about Surface tablets/laptops and Galaxy."

Indeed, Samsung's Galaxy S III launched last year to massive success, seemingly only matched by the success of the iPhone 5, which launched later in the year. One explanation for Apple's decrease in popularity with teenagers could be the price of it's devices – since iPhones are typically more expensive than the competition, parents hand off their old iPhone to their child. We can name more than a few teenagers who aren't interested if it isn't brand spanking new, and the lower price point of Android devices means that these teenagers have a better shot at getting a new phone all to themselves.

While we don't doubt some teenagers would rather throw in with Android before Apple these days, we also have to point to the number of disappointed teens who took to Twitter late last year after they discovered they wouldn't be getting the iDevices they craved for Christmas. The sheer amount of complainers suggests that Apple is still pretty popular in the teenage space, so ultimately, Apple my not be losing as much ground as this report suggests. We'll just have to wait until we have some data that's more solid before making the final call, if that data ever comes at all.