Australia : Mobile firms are looking towards Seniors

With more than 15 million mobile phones sold in a population of just under 20 million, the market is close to saturation. But marketers for the big three phone companies, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, see opportunities among those baby boomers who are still to master SMS.

Forget pop song ringtones and internet link-ups – the next big thing in mobile phones will be bigger screens and bigger buttons, as mobile companies try to hook baby boomers on SMS.

A Sydney trend specialist predicts the over-40s will be the next group to catch on to the craze, but that their market clout will bring about tailor-made phones for their failing eyesight and arthritic fingers.

Bernard Salt, a demographer and partner in the accounting firm KPMG, says two-thirds of households will have a computer by next year and predicts a boom in portable personal computers able to be carried anywhere in the home and other « wireless » domestic appliances.