As the demand for child-friendly devices continues to grow—Samsung Kids and Knox Configure are enabling education service providers and carriers to enter this lucrative new market with minimal investment.

Kids are getting their first phones at a younger and younger age. With smartphone ownership increasing by 14% among children aged 8 – 11, and by 21% among the 12-15 age group, since 2015, it’s no surprise that telecomms operators, educational content providers, and digital start ups are turning their attention to the youth market. While the economic opportunity is easy to spot, capitalizing on it is not so straightforward. 

Breaking down the barriers to entry

Naturally, parents can be apprehensive about putting phones into their children’s hands. Tech addiction, cyber attacks, and exposure to inappropriate content are among the many concerns that service providers must address if they are to make real inroads into the market. Children need a safe space to explore and parents need reassurance that screen time isn’t going to take over ‘real life’. Parents want to have oversight of the technology their kids interact with and clearly the default off-the-shelf settings can feel insufficient.

This poses the question—how can we make smartphones child-friendly, carrying the right content and with tools that allow for behavioral guidance? Many businesses are venturing to answer this question by customizing devices themselves. However, building parental controls requires extensive app development, not to mention the challenges involved in re-designing the device UX. There is always the risk that product development is often not worth the investment of time or finances.

Thankfully, there is an easier way. Samsung Kids feature – combined with Knox Configure – makes it easy for any operators and service providers to offer kid-friendly phones with less investment.

Introducing Samsung Kids

Easily accessible from the Quick Panel on the top menu, ‘Samsung Kids instantly converts Samsung devices into a safe, fun environment, with a colourful UI and child-friendly contents. But this built-in function does much more than just UX overhaul. Samsung Kids provides a ‘parental control’ feature, which enables parents to decide which apps and websites to block and which to allow right from the device. They can also set a ‘screen time’ limit and hide restricted apps and content behind a PIN. And, the best part—it comes pre-installed on most Samsung phones and tablets running Android 9 OS or higher, so there’s no need to build a kids device and environment from scratch. 

Samsung Kids is an attractive selling point for many mothers and fathers. However, for educational services providers and carriers to effectively address a whole target segment, a more scalable customization is needed. That’s where Knox Configure comes in.

Go from ‘Kids mode’ to full-scale kids phone with Knox Configure.

Knox Configure is a customization tool that turns Samsung Kids into a powerful platform for building bespoke kids devices in bulk. Here are the three points how KC does it.

 1. Re-design and customize the kids phone. With Knox Configure, service providers can set up their own distinctive device UI without having to write a single line of code. Everything, from the welcome screen and wallpapers to the layout, lock screen, app icons and names - and more - can be applied in bulk with your own designs, carrying your brand logo. 

2. Your contents and services, integrated with the device. If you’re venturing into the kids’ segment, you will probably have your own apps or content designed specifically for kids. Knox Configure allows you to bundle phones and tablets more tightly with those services. For example, by creating app and ‘URL allow’ lists and auto-installing selected apps. Service providers and carriers can make pre-defined apps instantly available from the homescreen after the intial set up, and control what kind of content can be accessed.

3. Putting parents at ease in an easier way. Usually, apps with parental controls have to be manually installed on both the parent’s and the child’s phone, either by store employees or by customers themselves. This two-app system not only made the development and set up process complicated and time consuming, it also meant that parents had to learn new, often complicated, software and contintually manage their child’s device like an IT admin – giving them additional headaches. 

With Knox Configure, the entire set up process is done remotely via Knox Configure’s web console—saving both your IT teams and end-users time and effort. Parental controls can also be intitiated right out of the box, so customers can simply boot up their new device, set a PIN code and personalize a few settings for their kids - and they’re all set.

Turning more potential segments into profit

The high level of customization offered by Samsung, as well as the ease of use, opens up all kinds of exciting opportunities for carriers and service providers. They could, for example, offer an entire range of dedicated kids’ devices—for different age groups, languages, and interests. Or even open up more doors to other education-focused organizations, such as schools, tutors, or private academies. All from a single Knox Configure web console, by simply setting up different profiles.

Companies around the world are already seeing a significant uptick in revenue thanks to Knox Configure and Samsung Kids. In Korea alone, several network providers are adopting this combination to launch their own Kids Phone – achieving a successful increase in device sales, with more than half a million devices within a year.

Game on for kid-friendly technology with Samsung Knox

Today’s advanced digital technology has the potential to improve our lives in so many ways. For many parents, the ability to keep in touch with their children at all times is enough incentive to buy them a phone. While there are many valid concerns, the question isn’t whether or not we should give smartphones to children but rather how can we do it in a responsible way.

Samsung devices, together with Knox Configure, make it easier for carriers and service providers to expand their business while providing a safe space for kids to explore the virtual world.