This article is more than 1 year old

UK parents to splurge £3 BEELLLIIIION on kids' tech gifts at Christmas

In unrelated news, shares in payday loan firms skyrocket

Parents will spend over £3bn on the latest tech gadgets for their little nippers this Christmas, spoiling them absolutely rotten.

Nearly 85 per cent of parents will spend £243 on electronics for their kids for the holidays, while the rest will spend over £400 on the lucky blighters, according to recent research from uSwitch.com.

The top gadget craved by the kiddies this year is a tablet, with 24 per cent of under-16s hoping to find a fondleslab sitting under the tree. Video games are the next most popular, with 17 per cent of children hoping for one or two of those, followed by smartphones at 13 per cent, digital cameras at 12 per cent and ereaders for 11 per cent of the little darlings.

Unsurprisingly, some of the parents are feeling that they probably treat their little angels a bit too well, with just over a quarter saying they thought they spent too much on gadgets for them. But a third of the parents reckon they'll up the price tag again next year.

All this tech buying is having one happy result though: there'll be less fighting over what to watch on the telly. British families will be glued to the gogglebox for over three hours on Christmas Day, but 26 per cent of them will watch in different rooms or online to help avoid tensions over the remote control.

In case you're one of those curmudgeonly traditionalists that reckon all this technology is getting in the way of a good old-fashioned Christmas, family fights and all, you'll be happy to hear that while a quarter of families will play games on consoles together, more than half will still play board games and nearly a third will play parlour games like charades.

Ernest Doku, telecoms expert at uSwitch, said that parents who were worried about their offspring bankrupting them with their expensive tech tastes should remember that there are options out there for non-fruity and non-galactic gear.

"Any parent worried about keeping the cost of Christmas gifts down should make sure they get the best deal, and perhaps think outside of the big names. Many of the bargain priced smartphones and tablets are actually still relatively high spec," he advised. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like