The purpose of the present study is to identify the association of age group regarding preference of a particular cellular service. In the era of globalization and information society, the fundamental role of telecommunication technologies cannot be underestimated. Pakistan’s mobile Industry is a dynamic and highly competitive market. Pakistan has the highest mobile penetration rate in the region. Cellular service subscribers are at 91.44 million growing @ 0.5%, and Cellular Mobile Density is 56.80 as of March 2009. As a result of unstable political situation and weakening macroeconomic indicators the growth in cellular segment has considerably slowed down. Thus, it is of growing concern to look at consumer buying decision process and shed light on the factors that finally determine consumer choices between different cellular services brands. For the purpose of our study five cellular service companies in Pakistan namely Mobilink, Ufone, Warid, Telenor, and Zong are selected. The findings provide that preference of a particular cellular service by a consumer is not independent of age group and it is concluded that there is some association exist i.e. preference of a particular cellular service by a consumer is dependent on age group.
Literature Review:
The last decade of the 20th century has been witness to remarkable technological developments in the area of wireless communication technologies. Telecommunication Industry has one of the most turbulent market environments today due to increased competition and change. Thus, it is of growing concern to look at consumer buying decision process and shed light on the factors that finally determine consumer choices between different cellular services brands.
(Karjaluoto, H., Karvonen, J., Kesti M., Koivumäki T., Manninen M., Pakola J., Ristola A., Salo J., 2005) argue that the choice of a mobile phone is a subjective choice situation, there are some general factors that seem to guide the choices. They also found that while technical problems are the basic reason to change mobile phone among students; price, brand, interface, and properties are the most influential factors affecting the actual choice between brands.
(Ondrus, J. and Pigneur, Y., 2007) presents a study that unveils the technological and organizational preferences of various industries towards mobile payment developments in Switzerland. They argue that card based solutions are still preferred to mobile phone based solutions from an industry point of view.
(Siau, K. and Shen, Z., 2003) examines issues in providing services via wireless technologies, i.e. mobile services. They discuss the challenges facing by mobile services, such as changes in business strategies, investment risk, limitations in mobile devices, networking problems, infrastructure constraints, security concerns, and user distrust in mobile applications. The authors also discuss the research issues, such as killer applications, usability, user interfaces, mobile access to databases, and agent technologies.
(Leppaniemi, M. and Karjaluoto, H. 2005) presents the study which investigates the consumers’ willingness to accept mobile advertising. First, they study the factors that influence the acceptance of mobile advertising from both industry’s and consumers’ point of view. Second, based on a review of previous studies in the field, the authors propose a conceptual model of consumers’ willingness to accept mobile advertising. Their findings provide several conceptual and managerial insights into the role of mobile advertising today and in the near future.
Pakistan’s Experience with Telecommunication Industry:
In the era of globalization and information society, the fundamental role of telecommunication technologies cannot be underestimated. Pakistan’s mobile Industry is a dynamic and highly competitive market.
Cellular mobile telecommunication services – An Overview:
Cellular mobile telecommunication services were introduced in Pakistan in 1990 and now Pakistan stands as one of the largest telecom subscriber with the cheapest calling rates in the region. Our Industry already has LL (Local Loop), WLL (Wireless Local Loop), LDI (Long distance and International), and ISP (Internet Service Provider) players and WiMax; 3G cellular systems are expected be a part of this Industry soon.
Market Players:
The major players of Pakistani Cellular mobile telecommunication service
Industry are Mobilink by Orascom, Ufone by PTCL, Telenor from
Norway, Warid by Abu Dhabi group and Zong by China Mobile.
According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA)
Mobile subscribers are 91.44 million as on March 2009. Mobilink
continues to lead the market with 28.24 million subscribers having
(30.88%) market share, followed by Telenor with 19.98 million
(21.86%), Ufone 19.61 million (21.45%), Warid 17.37 million (19%),
Zong 5.98 million (6.54%) and Instaphone 0.25 million (0.27%).
At present Mobilink has the largest coverage network across the nation, covering more than 10,000 locations. Telenor claims it is now acquiring more than 20,000 new subscribers every day, whereas Ufone claims to cover over 4536 key destinations.
Current Scenario:
(Rafiq, A., 2008) argues that a tough competition is expected as in the present scenario existing players are having a price war to attract existing and new users. Mostly the audience is subjected to deceptive advertisements and misleading offers which directly impacts consumer purchase decision.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to identify the association of age group regarding preference of a particular cellular service. We would like to investigate that whether the preference of users for a particular cellular service is dependent on different age group or not.
Hypothesis:
Ho: Preference of a particular cellular service is independent of age group.
H1: Preference of a particular cellular service is not independent of age group.
Methodology:
For this research the Survey method is used. The data is collected through questionnaire technique in which responses from 200 respondents were collected through 19 questions which include general information as well as factors which motivates the people to prefer a particular cellular service. All the data was provided by the teacher to perform analysis as per the course requirement.
Analysis:
The analysis was performed by the using the software called SPSS and the variable and test used are mentioned below:
Variables under study:
Following are the variables which are used in the analysis.
1. Cellular service
2. Age group
Both above-mentioned variables are categorical.
• Cellular service with 6 levels
• Age group with 2 levels
Test Statistic:
The Chi – square test is used to test the hypothesis in this research.
Chi-square is a statistical test which is commonly used to test the;
• Goodness of Fit Test
• Test of Attributes/ test of association/ test of independence
The Chi – Square distribution is a positively skewed distribution therefore we use one tail critical region for the test. It is a positively skewed distribution lie between zero and upper value. Numerical and categorical variables are used and the critical region will always come in the right side.
It is denoted by “?2” and its degree of freedom is “n-1”, where
n = Number of categories
Goodness of Fit Test:
Chi-Square goodness of fit test is used when the distribution is non-normal and the sample size is less than 30, so the chi-square goodness of fit test determines whether the distribution follows uniform distribution or not.
Test of Attributes / Association / Independence:
It is used to measure the relationship between two attributes. In test of attributes we check the hypothesis that, is there any dependency exist amongst the attributes or not.
For our research we are testing the association between cellular service and age group.
Out Put:
Summary:
The N value 200 shows the total number of respondents or observations. 100% shows that all 200 respondents have responded and there is no missing value or observation.
Summary:
Cross tabulation is used to examine the variation in the categorical data, it is a cross measuring analysis.
Above we are cross examine the Different age groups and Cellular Service used by the consumers.
We take Cellular Service used in the column and Different age groups of the consumers in row, and we have totaled 200 observations.
From the above-mentioned Cross tabulation table we can see that;
The most number of people in the sample of 200 respondents are using Mobilink cellular service. Out of total two hundred respondents 90 are using Mobilink. Of which 38 users are in the age group of between 18 to 24 while 52 users are in the age group of between 25 to 30.
Similarly if we analyze the Telenor and Ufone cellular services we can see that although Ufone cellular service users in total = 50 which are more then Telenor cellular service users in total = 38. But Telenor is more successful in capturing the consumers having age group between 18 to 24 with 28 users while Ufone has keep up with only 24 users.
The results also show that Warid has a very low consumer base with overall users are only 22 with 10 users are in age group between 18 to 24 while 12 users are in the age group between 25 to 30.
Analysis:
The above table gives the test results for the chi-square test for independence or association. The first row labeled Pearson Chi-Square shows that the value of ?2 is 10.966 with 3 degree of freedom. The two-tailed p-value is shown as 0.012, which is less than 0.05, so we can reject our null hypothesis which means that the attributes are not independent and there is some dependency exists between attributes and concludes that the preference of a particular cellular service is not independent of age group.
Conclusion:
The test results are statistically significant at 5% level of significance and the data provide sufficient evidence to conclude that the preference of a particular cellular service is not independent of age group, and we are almost 100% confident on our decision and the rejection of the null hypothesis.
Recommendation:
From the above-mentioned Pie Chart it is evident that Mobilink cellular service has the largest market share and is most preferred by consumers or cellular service users of both age groups (i.e. between 18 to 24 and between 25 to 30) (see Table-2). The results of our analysis also show that preference of a particular cellular service by a consumer is not independent of age group which means that there is some association exist i.e. preference of a particular cellular service by a consumer is dependent on age group.
In this respect we recommend that Cellular Service companies like Mobilink (market leader) and Ufone, Telenor and Warid (followers) should understand and closely monitor the changing attitudes of different age groups and formulate their marketing strategies accordingly.
Reference:
Karjaluoto, H., Karvonen, J., Kesti M., Koivumäki T., Manninen M., Pakola J., Ristola A., Salo J., (2005) “Factors Affecting Consumer Choice of Mobile Phones: Two Studies from Finland”, Journal of Euro marketing, Vol. 14(3), The Haworth Press, Inc.
Ondrus J. and Pigneur Y., (2007) “Cross industry Preferences for Mobile Payments Development in Switzerland”, Electronic Markets The International Journal, Vol.17, No.2.
Siau, K. and Shen, Z., (2003) “Mobile communications and mobile services”, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Volume 1, Number 3.
Leppaniemi, M. and Karjaluoto, H. (2005) “Factors influencing consumers’ willingness to accept mobile advertising: a conceptual model”, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Volume 3, Number 3, p. 197-213
Rafiq, A. (2008) “The telecommunication industry – Growth prospects”, Pakistan Research
Telecom Sector update, Khoja’s Capital Management (Pvt.) Ltd
Mobile Cellular Services: at http://www.pta.gov.pk retrieved on: [Tuesday, May 12, 2009]