Drivers of Mobile-Commerce Acceptance in India: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Over the past few years mobile phones have transformed our day to day life and working. With the advancement in wireless and mobile technologies, mobile phones are reshaping the modes how corporates do business and also the ways how consumers interact with businesses. Today, Mobile Commerce (m-commerce) has become the new trend which is expected to make significant impact on the business landscape. In India, the Mobile Commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 71.06 percent by the year 2016. According to a report from Internet Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the number of mobile internet users in India is expected to double between July 2013 and June 2014 (as depicted in fig 1). There is substantial increase in smartphone users in India. Both of these factors are associated with greater adoption for mobile-commerce in India. M-commerce refers to the usage of a mobile devices for making transactions wirelessly. Chaffey (2009, p.6) defines Mobile commerce as transactions and communications conducted using mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones, and typically with a wireless connection. Tsalgatidou & Pitoura (2001) indicated that “mobile electronic commerce (MEC) operates partially in a different environment than Internet e-commerce due to the special characteristics and constraints of mobile terminals and wireless networks and the context, situations and circumstances in which people use their hand-held terminals.” Consumers are gradually using mobile devices to connect their online and offline markets. Today, a large number of people are using their mobile phones to look up product information, compare prices and even make online purchases while window shopping in an offline store. Presently, Indian users indulge in mobile purchases for low value transactions such as entertainment services, games, and music downloads. Mobile commerce is quite popular in the developed countries but in India it is in nascent stage and yet to take off. This study captures users’ acceptance behaviour towards M-commerce by applying theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model developed by Ajzen (1991). Data was collected online by using a questionnaire. Data was analysed with SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used as main analytical tool to analyze the cause and effect relation of the research model constructs. Results indicate that attitude and perceived behavioural control have positive and significant impact on individual’s intention while subjective norm has a positive but not significant impact on intention. Further, intention is found to be significantly and positively related with behaviour.