Smartphone dependency and impact on consumer purchase behavior of people in Kota Kinabalu

• Main Author: Liew, Toh Soon
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: HF5410-5417.5 Marketing. Distribution of products
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/6144/7/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/6144/8/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/6144/

As the growing trend of smartphone usage in Malaysia, the smartphone industry has become an important and profiting industry in the country. With the modification of the framework by Ting, Lim, Patanmacia, Low and Ker (2011), the antecedents and outcome of smartphone dependency among the consumer in Kota Kinabalu were determined. The study uses the theory of uses and gratification to determine the motivation uses of smartphone and the media dependency theory to define dependency and its outcome. The objective of this study can be achieve through multiple regression analyses of antecedents variables with dependency and followed by simple regression between dependency and purchase behavior (outcome) of the study. The proposed antecedents' variables consist of entertainment, convenience, social need and social influence. However, factor analysis had suggested that social influence and convenience to be a multidimension construct. Descriptive norms and subjective norms were dimensions for social influence whereas portability and time utilization were dimensions for convenience. Data analyses were based on 226 valid questionnaires that were collected. The result from the analysis shows that only social needs and subjective norms were significantly influence the smartphone dependency factors among consumer in Kota Kinabalu. The other factors of entertainment, descriptive norms, utilization and portability show not significant and do not influence the smartphone dependency. On the other hand, dependency on smartphone does show significant result and influence on purchase behavior as the outcome of the study.