An Empirical Study of Smartphone User Behavior

Abstract

This study investigates determinants of the adoption behavior of smartphone users. Despite the increasing number of smartphone users, the literature on information technology usage has paid little attention to the motivation behind smartphone adoption. This study identifies three determinants of smartphone adoption behavior: innovative characteristics, brand equity and social influences. Data were collected from 293 smartphone users. The analytical results have indicated that users choose to use smartphone not only for its usefulness, enjoyment and compatibility to their lifestyle (i.e. innovative characteristics), but also for its cost effectiveness (i.e. brand equity). Additionally, users will search for related information for the suitability of their adoption decisions (i.e. social influence). Together, the above factors account for over 60 percent of adoption behaviors. Moreover, the findings also indicate that perceptions of use varied over the innovation diffusion stage. Implications and suggestions for practitioners are also discussed.