Mobile-carrier choice behavior analysis between three major mobile-carriers and mobile virtual network operators

The mobile phone market in Japan was shared by three Major Mobile-Carriers (3MMC): docomo, au and SoftBank. As the recognition of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) is improved, the number of MVNO customers is expected to increase in the future. The purpose of this study is to understand the preference for 3MMC vs. MVNO considering the current mobile-phone market. We describe the current situation of the mobile phone market in Japan. We analyze the difference between 3MMC customers and MVNO customers from various points of view in this paper. This paper presents the results based on the original market research survey data conducted in January 2017. We classify customers in two segments: 3MMC customers and MVNO customers. We show the characteristics of two customer segments to understand the future demand of mobile carriers from the viewpoints of decision-making factors for mobile carriers. We propose a new revealed-preference model to classify into two customer segments. We show the difference between 3MMC customers and MVNO customers by using the estimated model.