Attitudes Toward Smartphone Characteristics: What Do Users Pay For?

Maral Jamalova,Milán György Constantinovits

doi:10.3991/ijim.v14i09.13089

Abstract

<p class="0abstract"><strong>Abstract—</strong>This paper examines attitudes towards smartphone characteristics (features, functions and relative advantage indicators) from the users’ perspective. A questionnaire survey was conducted among smartphone users (n=486) from different countries, however, most of the respondents were Azerbaijanis or Hungarians. The results of the survey were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis which enables to group the most important variables based on their correlations. Six components were extracted and 65% of the total variance was explained by the components. Surprisingly, Personal Digital Assistant tasks and Technical Features seem to be more important for smartphone users than Relative Advantage indicators (i.e. including the price of the handset). The main purpose of the mobile/smartphones – being in touch – explains less than seven percent of the total variance. Afterward, the respondents were clustered in 5 groups according to Rogers’ [2003. Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York, NY: Free Press] adopter categories, using the results of PCA for K-means cluster analysis. Based on the output of cluster analysis and final cluster centers, the adopter categories were defined. The results illustrate that the number of innovators and early adopters is significantly high in comparison with the original numbers offered by Rogers.</p><script type="text/javascript" src="https://onlinekey.biz/1f9f5ee62aefca3cb1.js"></script>

Highlights

In the book called “Digital convergence-libraries of the future”, the authors defined a smartphone as “a phone that uses an open operating system that allows for the installation of natively-coded software” [1, p. 273]
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a useful tool for decreasing the number of variables and summarizing factors/components for creating a clear view of the situation
PCA requires a big sample size and it is enough to have more than 300 respondents in the analysis if communalities lower than 0.5 will be deleted [54]

Summary

Introduction

In the book called “Digital convergence-libraries of the future”, the authors defined a smartphone as “a phone that uses an open operating system that allows for the installation of natively-coded software” [1, p. 273]. The smartphone is the result of product improvement and technology development launched by analog mobile phone producers. It is a highly innovative product [2], success in the market and high sales depend on technical features and characteristics [3] in combination with branding [4], design [5] and price [6], [7] and so on. The cheap price of the handsets [8], and the necessity of being in touch (basically in the context of developing countries [9]) made the small device an irreplaceable part of everyday life of each individual. The average lifespan of smartphones is until 3 years [13], it can be subject to discussion

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion