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Research Report

Factors Influencing the Purchase of Mobile Phone Brands
A Study on Navitas Students

Student Name: Kazi Naimul Bari
Student ID: N90130710
Class: Academic English 3
Teacher: Ian Olorenshaw
Date: Monday, 26 May, 2014.

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Table of Contents

Page Number
Abstract . 3
Introduction.. 4-5
Methodology 6
Results.. 7-10
Discussion.. 11
References. 12
Appendix. 13-14


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Abstract
This report investigated the hypothesis that females are more influenced by family members
and friends than male students to purchase mobile phones. The survey was conducted among
63 Navitas international students through questions. These questions include demographic
variables and four key factors. The key factors are price, quality, brand familiarity and social
influence (family and friends).There are almost equal numbers of male and female students
participating in this research project. The results show that quality is the major influential
factor for purchasing a mobile phone brands. Moreover, the evidence shows males are more
influenced by family and friends compared to female students in making their purchase
decisions. These findings may help mobile companies to focus more on their customer
purchase behaviours.

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Factors Influencing the Purchase of Mobile Phone Brands
A Study on Navitas Students
Introduction
Todays mobile phone invention has resulted from further development of the telephone. The
inventor of the first telephone was Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. But Martin Cooper
(employer and researcher of Motorola) initially developed the modern mobile phone named
Motorola Dynatac (cellular phone) in 1973. Now the mobile phone has become an essential
communication device for peoples daily lives all over the world (Chisenga, Entua-Mensah,
& Sam, 2007). So, from the person in the street to the business person, public and private
officers, students, almost everybody uses mobile phones to communicate with others. Mobile
phones enable activities like internet browsing, e-mail, chatting, and online learning
(Raymond K. Dziwornu, 2013). Therefore, mobile phone companies may be the future
market leaders who can identify customers immediate and upcoming needs that offer a vision
of new technologies (Brown, 1991; Hamel and Prahalad, 1991; Kumar, 1997; Nagel, 2003).
In this dynamic environment, mobile phone companies are offering distinguished products
for their customers to choose their brand instead of a competitors. Therefore much research
is conducted to determine what factors influence consumers to purchase mobile phones. The
results show that the purchase of mobile phones is influenced by different factors among
customers throughout the world. These factors are associated with customer characteristics as
well as mobile phone features (Mesay Sata, 2013). Sylvie Laforet, Junsong Chen (2010)
examined evaluation of Chinese and international brands and factors that influence their
purchase decisions in China. They found that British people were influenced by brand
reputation and brand trust whereas the Chinese choices are based on brand value and brand
familiarity. In another study, Mesay Sata (2013) found price was the most important factor of
all for making mobile phone purchase decisions. Based on the survey, Sata suggested that
mobile phone companies should take this into account. Raymond K. Dziwornu (2013)
investigated some factors that influence purchasing of mobile phones where he discovered
quality or durability and internet browsing to be the main factors influencing the decisions of
educated youth. Moreover few studies (Kau and Jungs, 2004) have been conducted on
consumer behaviour based on the individualist culture of the West which includes reference
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group influence, information sharing, opinion leadership and ethnocentrism as well as the
individuals self-concept, and family orientation. While the collectivism culture of Asia
reflects that they are more influenced by family members rather than peers. Sun et al. (2004)
also reported that Japanese and Chinese people give more importance on children, family
benefit and family opinion relative to Britain and USA people for making their purchase
decisions.
There has been much research conducted on factors that influence mobile phone purchases.
But there are also some gaps in that research. Sylvie Laforet, Junsong Chen (2010)
concentrated only on a city in China using certain Chinese, Japanese, the Western and South
Korean brands to find the factors that influence customers to purchase particular products.
Anthony Dadzie (2011), conducting research in Ghana, mentioned four key factors for
choosing mobile phone brands. These were promotion, price and availability of product,
attractive packaging and product quality. The limitation of his research was the time taken to
conduct the research as well as focusing only on one city in Ghana. Most of the previous
research done focused on some specific factors like price, quality, consumer behaviour, local
and international brands in a particular location. But we want to examine other factors such as
social influence (family and friends) along with price, quality and brand familiarity to
determine which factor mostly influenced Navitas students decision to purchase a particular
mobile phone brands.
In this research, it is hypothesized that social influence (family members and friends) has
more impact on female students for purchasing mobile phones than male students. The results
of the finding will help mobile phone companies in Darwin to focus on that particular issue to
increase their market share.

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Methodology
This research investigated the factors that mostly influence Navitas students decision to
purchase a specific mobile phone brands. The survey was carried out among 63 participants
on 9 May, 2014. All of the participants were Navitas students. Among 63 participants, there
were 30 male students and 33 female students who gave their opinion about factors that
influenced them to purchase specific mobile phone brands. Most of the participants were
from Asian countries including India, China, East Timor and Taiwan. They were mostly
between 18-25 years old.
In this research, questions were administered to find out what factors mostly influence
Navitas students to purchase a specific mobile phone brands. The study included variables
like price, quality, brand familiarity and social influence (family members and friends).
We designed the research questionaries based on demographic variables and four key factors.
There were 12 questions which included one open-ended and eleven close-ended multiple
choice questions. Among these questions, the first three sought demographic information and
the other nine questions sought information about Navitas students and the mobile phone
brands they use.
There was 100% response rate from the participants for the research questions. But a few of
the respondents did not answer all the questions. Finally the data was collated and converted
to percentages. Moreover, the results were put into graphs and then compared.




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Results

Figure 1



In figure 1, the graph demonstrates all the factors that influence Navitas students to purchase specific
mobile phone brands.
Overall the chart indicates that each factor influences both males and female students to some extent
for purchasing a specific mobile phone brands. However, by far quality is the most important factor
among Navitas students for making mobile phones purchase decisions.
Though all factors are considered as an influential issue, the majority of the respondents believe that
quality and brand familiarity are the most important factor to purchasing specific mobile phone
brands. But 19.4% of students do not agree with this statement. Furthermore, the least influential
factor is social influence where more than 50% of students feel family and friends have no impact on
their decision to purchase mobile phones.
40
63.5
90
73.4
27
19.1
3.8
15.6
33
17.4
6.2
11
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Social Influence Price Quality Brand Familiarity
P
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f

R
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p
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Factors Influence Making Mobile Phones Purchase Decision
Factors Influencing Navitas Students Choice of Mobile Phone Brands
Agree
Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
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Figure 2



Figure 2 illustrates the influence of family members and friends on Navitas students to purchase a
specific mobile phone brand.
It can be seen that the same numbers of female students (36.4%) agree on the factor that social
influence (family and friends) has an impact on their purchase decision, whereas they also provided
indifference opinion about the issue. In addition, less than 50% male students (43.3%) feel that family
and friends influence them to purchase mobile phones brand.
It is observed that considerably more male students are influenced by family members and friends
than female students to purchase their specific mobile phones brand. On the other hand, similar
percentages of male and female students (26.7%, 27.3% respectively) do not feel that family and
friends have any influence on their decisions. However, there is more than one quarter of male and
female students who make their decisions independently.
43.3
26.7
30
36.4
27.3
36.4
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Agree Disagree Neither Agree Nor
Disagree
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Responses
The Influence of Family and Friends on Mobile Phone Purchases
Males
Females
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Figure 3


Figure 3 shows whether price has any impact on Navitas students or not to purchase specific mobile
phone brands.
As can be seen from the bar chart, significantly more female students (60.6%) considered price as an
important factor for making their decisions to purchase mobile phones than male students (40%).
Three times as many males (20%) as females (6.1%) have a strong belief that price should be given
more priority for purchasing mobile phone brands. However, fractionally both males and female
students have different views regarding price. In addition there are few male and female students who
do not consider price as an influential issue to make purchase decision.
20
40
20 20
6.1
60.6
18.2
15.2
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Neither Agree Nor
Disagree
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Responses
Price as a Factor Influencing on Mobile Phones Purchases
Males
Females
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Figure 4



Figure 4 shows the influence of brand familiarity on both male and female students to purchase a
specific mobile phone brands.
It can be observed from the graph that almost three quarters of males and female students are inclined
to believe that brand familiarity has an impact on making their purchasing decision of mobile phones.
There are many males students feel that brand familiarity is a key factor to purchase specific mobile
phone brands than female students. In contrast, female students (18.2%) have different views whether
brand familiarity has any impact or not on purchasing mobile phones brand compared to male
students (13.3%). Furthermore, few Navitas students believed that brand familiarity does not matter to
them.







16.7
60
13.3
10
9.1
60.7
18.2
12.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Strong Agree Agree Disagree Neither
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Responses
Brand Familiarity as a Factor Influencing Mobile Phone Purchases
Males
Females
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Discussion
The purpose of this research is to examine the factors which influence Navitas students
decision to purchase mobile phone brands. It is hypothesized that female students are more
influenced by family and friends than male students. We found that all the variables have
relatively influential on respondent decisions to purchase mobile phone brands. However, the
results of this research contrast with our hypothesis. The findings show that this hypothesises
was not entirely accurate. 35% of male and female students believe that friends and family
members contribute to their decisions regarding mobile phone purchases. The research of
Sylvie Laforet, Junsong Chen (2010), identified that Chinese consumers are also influenced
by family and friends but that British Consumers were not.
It is evident that both male and female students give more priority to quality. Almost 90% of
the respondents believe that quality is the most important factor for purchasing a particular
mobile phone brands. Raymond K. Dziwornu (2013) found that quality has a significant
influence when making a decision to purchase a mobile phone. However, the research of
Sylvie Laforet, Junsong Chen (2010), indicated that quality is not a greatly influential issue in
Chinese consumer brand purchases.
The second most influential factor is brand familiarity in purchasing mobile phones. Overall,
nearly three quarters of respondents feel that brand familiarity influences them to make
purchase decisions. This result is also supported by Laforet & Chen (2010), where Chinese
consumers took into account brand familiarity for all purchasing decisions. So, mobile phone
companies need to invest more time for making strong brand image in customers minds.
The final findings of this research show that price is also an influential factor for Navitas
students to make their decisions regarding purchase of a mobile phone. More than 50 percent
of male and female students feel that price should be set according to mobile phone features.
This finding is supported by Sata (2013), where research showed that price was the most
motivational force to go for a mobile phone purchase decision.
The major limitation of this study is the small sample size with only 63 Navitas students. So,
the findings of the research cannot be generalized based on this result.
Therefore, further research needs to cover larger sample groups not only in Darwin but also
in other locations in Australia to investigate these factors more intensively.
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References
A n t h o n y D a d z i e ( 2 0 1 1 ) . B r a n d P r e f e r e n c e f o r Mo b i l e P h o n e Op e r a t o r
S e r v i c e s i n t h e C a p e C o a s t Me t r o p o l i s . I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f
B u s i n e s s a n d Ma n a g e me n t . 6 ( 1 1 ) , 1 9 0 - 2 0 5 .
do i : 1 0 . 5 5 3 9 / i j b m. v 6 n 1 1 p 1 9 0
C h i s e n g a J . E n t u a - Me n s a h , C . , & S a m, J . ( 2 0 0 7 ) . I mp a c t o f Gl o b a l i z a t i o n o n
t h e I n f o r ma t i o n n e e d s o f F a r me r s i n Gh a n a : A C a s e S t u d y o f S ma l l -
S c a l e P o u l t r y F a r me r s . Wo r l d L i b r a r y a n d I n f o r ma t i o n C o n g r e s s
C o n f e r e n c e a n d C o u n c i l , 1 9 2 3 . D u r b a n , S o u t h A f r i c a .
K a u A . K & J u n g , K ( 2 0 0 4 ) . C u l t u r e s C o n s e q u e n c e s o n C o n s u me r B e h a v i o r .
R e s e a r c h P a p e r S e r i e s . R e t r i e v e d f r o m
h t t p : / / www. b s c h o o l . n u s . e d u . s g / p o r t a l s / 0 / i ma g e s / P h D/ d o c s / R P S 2 0 0 4 .
d o c .
Me s a y S a t a ( 2 0 1 3 ) . F a c t o r s Af f e c t i n g C o n s u me r B u y i n g B e h a v i o r o f Mo b i l e
P h o n e D e v i c e s . Me d i t e r r a n e a n J o u r n a l o f S o c i a l S c i e n c e s . 1 2 , 1 0 3 - 1 1 2 .
Do i : 1 0 . 5 9 0 1 / mj s s . 2 0 1 3 . v 4 n 1 2 p 1 0 3 .
R a y mo n d K . D z i wo r n u ( 2 0 1 3 ) . F a c t o r s A f f e c t i n g Mo b i l e P h o n e P u r c h a s e I n
t h e Gr e a t e r A c c r a R e g i o n o f Gh a n a . I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f
Ma r k e t i n g S t u d i e s . 5 ( 6 ) , 1 5 1 - 1 6 3 . Do i : 1 0 . 5 5 3 9 / i j ms . v 5 n 6 p 1 5 1 .
S u n T . Ho r n , M. , & Me r r i t t , D ( 2 0 0 4 ) . V a l u e s a n d l i f e s t y l e s o f i n d i v i d u a l i s t s
a n d c o l l e c t i v i s t s : A s t u d y o n C h i n e s e , J a p a n e s e , B r i t i s h a n d US
c o n s u me r s . J o u r n a l o f C o n s u me r Ma r k e t i n g . 2 1 , 3 1 8 3 3 1 .
S y l v i e L a f o r e t , J u n s o n g C h e n ( 2 0 1 0 ) . C h i n e s e a n d B r i t i s h c o n s u me r s
e v a l u a t i o n o f C h i n e s e a n d i n t e r n a t i o n a l b r a n d s a n d f a c t o r s a f f e c t i n g
t h e i r c h o i c e . J o u r n a l o f Wo r l d B u s i n e s s . 4 7 , 5 4 - 6 3 . R e t r i e v e d
f r o mh t t p : / / www. e l s e v i e r . c o m/ l o c a t e / j wb .
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Appendix
This research is investigating factors influence Navitas students decision to purchase mobile phones
brand.
Please circle and answer the following questions
1. What gender are you?
a. Male b. Female
2. What is your nationality?

3. How old are you?
a. Under 18 b. 18-25 c.26-30 d. more than 30

4. Which brand of mobile phone do you use?
a. Apple b. Nokia c. Samsung d. Blackberry e. Others

5. How much did the mobile phone that you are using cost?
a. Less than $150 b. $150-350 c. More than $350 d. On a plan

6. From whom did you get the idea to purchase your mobile phone?
a. Friends b. Advertisement c. Family members d. Others

7. What price are you willing to pay for a mobile phone?
a. Lower price b. Medium price c. Higher price d. Dont care

8. What mobile phone do you prefer most?
a. Apple b. Nokia c. Samsung d. Blackberry e. Other

9. Do you think social influence (family and friends) has a stronger effect on your decision to
purchase your mobile phone than other factors?
a. Agree b. Disagree c. Neither agree nor disagree

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10. Do you think brand familiarity influence your decision to purchase a mobile phone more than
other factors?
a. Strongly agree b. Agree c. Disagree d. Neither agree nor disagree

11. Do you think quality influence your decision to purchase a mobile phone more than other
factors?
a. Strongly agree b. Agree c. Disagree d. Neither agree nor disagree

12. Do you think price influence your decision to purchase a mobile phone more than other factors?
a. Strongly agree b. Agree c. Disagree d. Neither agree nor disagree