Gen Alpha Has $28 Billion in Purchasing Power

Numerator has been learning from the U.S.'s youngest generation, leveraging verified purchase data and a survey of more than 35,000 parents/guardians with children under the age of 15.

Here's what researchers learned in Anticipating Generation Alpha: Gen Alpha has an estimated $28 billion in direct purchasing power. 53% of Gen Alpha parents report giving some sort of allowance to their children with the average weekly allowance being $22 for personal spending and saving. Gen Alpha uses their allowance dollars to purchase toys (48%), snacks (42%), beverages (31%), entertainment (31%), and electronics (29%).

35% of Gen Alpha households have a shared physical shopping list while 14% have a shared digital list. In addition, parents say that their children usually/always have independence when choosing snacks (50%), apparel (44%), beverages (41%), fast food (37%), entertainment (36%), electronics (35%), and school supplies (34%). 7% of Gen Alpha parents say they let their children shop independently in stores more than half of the time compared to 22% online.

Gen Alpha households are 31% more likely to be higher income (>$125k household income) but 41% more likely to be in the bottom 10th percentile of purchasing power as their dollars are stretched across their larger households. Households with Gen Alpha children are 21% more likely to be Asian and 48% more likely to be Hispanic, and this diversity extends to purchasing decisions. Compared to all Gen Alpha households, first-generation immigrant households with Gen Alpha children are purchasing more international snack and candy brands, such as Ferrero Nutella, Meiji Hello Panda, Barcel Takis, and Glico Pocky.

Health & beauty brands such as Shiseido Co., Pico, and Salonpas also overindex with first-generation Gen Alpha households. 69% of Gen Alpha children have requested something they saw in an advertisement with 50% asking for something before age 6.

Video-centric social media is preferred by Gen Alpha with kids aged 11 to 14 driving adoption. The most popular social media apps among Gen Alpha are YouTube (46% and 90% of them check it daily), TikTok (21%, 89%), Snapchat (14%, 84%), Instagram (14%, 78%), and Facebook (10%, 65%). For personal devices, Gen Alpha prefers tablets (49%) and cell phones (38%) over televisions (30%), video game consoles (28%), and computers/laptops (26%).