Nearly half of all U.S. teens own an iPhone, 62 percent plan to buy one

Source: Piper Jaffray

As noted by Fortune, Piper Jaffray's 25th bi-annual teen survey (PDF link) found Apple's iOS devices to be the most desirable telecom products, outperforming offerings from manufacturers using Google's Android operating system.

The wide-ranging survey, which includes metrics on everything from dining preferences to fashion, polled 1,600 teens from high-income and 3,600 teens from average-income families in classroom visits and electronic surveys.

Key findings:

• 59% of teens say they are likely to buy an iOS device (unchanged from fall) and 21% are likely to buy an Android device (was 20%)
• 48% of teens already own an iPhone, compared with 40% last fall
• 62% of teens plan on making an iPhone their next mobile device (flat vs. fall 2012)
• 23% expect to buy an Android phone, up from from 22% last fall

According to the study, 91 percent of teens said they plan on buying a smartphone for their next high-tech device, a number up from 86 percent last spring and 90 percent last fall.

As for tablets, 51 percent of respondents said they already own one, up from 44 percent last fall. Apple's iPad saw a decrease in marketshare, dropping from 72 percent to 68 percent, though 68 percent of teens said they plan to buy the device.

Apple appears to have a firm hold on the teen community, and while Android made some slight sequential gains, the overall market appears to be skewed toward iOS.