National Conference on "Management Challenges In The New Era: Strategies For Success"

Consumer Behaviour of Customers Towards Smartphones: An Indian Perspective

Dr Syed Wajid Ali Assistant Professor, CMS, Jamia Millia Islamia Tahir Ahmad Wani Research Scholar (PhD), Jamia Millia Islamia

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Introduction
India is the third biggest market for smartphones

Smartphone market 229% YOY in 2013 growth over its previous year.
Millions of smartphones are shipped into Indian market each month.

Aim
To analyze various underlying factors that prompt a customer to buy or reject a particular smartphone.

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Problem statement
Contrary to the size of Smartphone market in India, the existing body of knowledge is still far less adequate in understanding the consumers attitude and behavior towards the purchase and use of various smartphones available. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the behavior of consumers toward different kinds of Smart pones along with the features they come along.

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Objectives
To understand the demographic characteristics of users of smartphones. To explore the factors that motivate people to purchase smartphones.

To know which sources of information influence user purchase behavior.

To find out how often smartphones are purchased by customers. To know the user brand preference towards smartphones. To understand user preference about various smartphone attributes. To compare between preferences of Male and Female customers on various smartphone attributes. To know for which activities the smartphones are mainly used.

To compare Male and Female customers on activities they do on smartphones.

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Research Methodology Sample Design

Table-1: Total Distribution Statistics Gender of Respondents N Number Missing 150 0 Age of Respondents 150 0 Qualification of Respondents 148 2 147 3 Occupation of Respondents

Sampling Technique: Non-Probability Purposive sampling technique was used.

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Data Collection
Primary data was collected from 150 respondents belonging to two cities of India- New Delhi & Srinagar (J&K) by using a structured questionnaire.

The questionnaire was developed by authors on the basis of review of literature and discussion with users.

Scale Reliability
Cronbach's Alpha was found to be 0.971for the 24 Items used for data collection

Tools Used for Analysis

Mean, SD, T-Test, Crosstabs.
Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Findings
Males owned more smartphones than females, by people in age group of 20-29 &10-19 Years and Students, Businessmen & Professional seem to have an upper hand when it comes to owning a Smart Phone Most respondents prefer to take advice from a Tech-savvy person whose knowledge is up to date regarding the features and the price of a Smartphone

Most respondents seek the information about smartphones from Internet retailers, online reviews and technology Websites.
Mostly smartphones are purchased directly from retailers followed by online shops

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Findings
The respondents who own a Smart Phone feel that they influence others to buy a Smart Phone in one or the other way-Females feel more it than males. Most of the respondents had purchased their last Smart Phones more than a year ago. Respondents were not frequent buyers. Black comes out to be the most preferred colour by both Male and Female respondents followed by white and blue. 56% of respondents have Android powered Smart Phones.

Samsung holds the top position with 36% share followed by Nokia (13.3%) and Micromax (8%). The rest of players are having almost an equal share.
Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Findings
Respondents mostly purchased a smartphone for its multi-tasking capabilities. SIM Slots available and Colour of phone are on lower side while as the Processor speed, strength and 3G/WiFi capability are features that are given high importance while choosing a smart phone. Males prefer Smart Phones with more number of SIM slots as compared to females. Most of the time is spend by users to browse internet on their Smart Phones. Also fair amount of time is spend on checking emails, using social apps and also making/receiving phone calls. Males spend more time downloading media as compared to females.
Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

Implications
Indian customers are not frequent purchasers which can be a challenge for Smart Phone companies and might be a factor to hamper sales in future. Most of the people had Android backed smart phones with mostly running on Jelly Bean versions which may force companies to introduce smartphones based on Android only. Samsung is the leader of smart phones in the Indian markets and the same shows up in our study as well probably because they have a presence in every segment of this market (price-wise) and this is the reason of their strength. Most respondents want to have first-hand experience of the phone before actual purchase and that might be a reason why most of them purchase it from retailers only. Black and White are the most preferred colours reason might be that scratches dont show up that much in these colours (as agreed by many users after interviews). As the study revealed that most of the respondents purchase a smart phone because of its Multi-tasking functionality it calls for the manufacturers to induce more features in the phones to enhance such functions. OEMs need to focus on all attributes of smartphones as everyone of them gets same weightage when respondents decide to purchase a particular phone.
Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014

THANK YOU

Copyright Tahir A. Wani 2014