Employing online big data and patent statistics to examine the relationship between end product's perceived quality and components' technological features

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyse the relationship between components' technological features and a product's perceived quality by consumers. The information about technological features is gathered from patent data, whereas the perceived quality is based on a voluminous set of online users' opinions. The research intends to let emerge the usefulness of big data for managing the technological development of high-tech products. The relationship is tested in the smartphone industry, focusing on 168 flagship smartphones. The work demonstrates the role of components of a product architecture in improving the end product's market value. Specifically, the perceived quality of a smartphone seems to be particularly affected by technological features of three components - application processor, camera module, and image sensor - in terms of both technological capacity and technological strategy.