Market acceptance for the satellite DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) services in Korea

This study examines market acceptance for DMB services, one of the touted new business models in Korea's next-generation mobile communications service market, using diffusion of innovation as the theoretical framework. Market acceptance for DMB services was assessed by predicting the demand for the service using the Bass model. In our estimation of the Bass model, we derived the coefficient of innovation and coefficient of imitation, using actual diffusion data from the mobile telephone service market. The maximum number of subscribers was estimated based on the result of a survey on satellite DMB services. Following the obtained demand prediction models revealed that diffusion took place forming a classical S-curve. Meanwhile, satellite DMB services, reaching demand peak at 6.9 years after the launch, appeared likely to be diffused substantially faster than mobile phone service. This study, as an attempt to measure the market acceptance for the satellite DMB services, a leading next-generation mobile communications service product, using diffusion of innovation theories and based on the result of a survey conducted through one-to-one interviews. We believe that the theoretical framework elaborated in this study and its findings can be fruitfully reused in future attempts to predict demand for new mobile communications service products.