Attitudes Toward Smartphone Characteristics: What Do Users Pay For?

Abstract—This paper examines attitudes towards smartphone characteristics (features, functions and relative advantage indicators) from the users’ perspective. A questionnaire survey was conducted among smartphone users (n=486) from different countries, however, most of the respondents were Azerbaijanis or Hungarians. The results of the survey were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis which enables to group the most important variables based on their correlations. Six components were extracted and 65% of the total variance was explained by the components. Surprisingly, Personal Digital Assistant tasks and Technical Features seem to be more important for smartphone users than Relative Advantage indicators (i.e. including the price of the handset). The main purpose of the mobile/smartphones – being in touch – explains less than seven percent of the total variance. Afterward, the respondents were clustered in 5 groups according to Rogers’ [2003. Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York, NY: Free Press] adopter categories, using the results of PCA for K-means cluster analysis. Based on the output of cluster analysis and final cluster centers, the adopter categories were defined. The results illustrate that the number of innovators and early adopters is significantly high in comparison with the original numbers offered by Rogers.