Factors Influencing Behavior of Selecting Touch Screen Mobile Phones

Factors Influencing Behavior of Selecting Touch Screen Mobile Phones

Muhammad Khalique, Senorita Lokie Tunggau
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-7316-8.ch013
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Abstract

The main aim of this chapter is to examine the influence of factors affecting the behavioural intention of customers. In this chapter, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and social influence are considered as predictors while behavioral intention is employed as dependent variable. A total of 260 participants were involved in this study. The participants were selected through non-probability sampling technique, namely Snow Ball. In order to achieve the objective of this study, three research hypotheses were constructed. The proposed hypotheses were tested by using multiple regression analysis. The findings demonstrate that three hypotheses are supported. The findings show that three factors are playing a significant role in developing the behavioral intention. This study will be a millstone for the potential researchers.
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Introduction

Mobile phones act as tools of instant communication that provide a platform to support distant collaborative work (Hakilla & Mantyjarvi, 2005). In 2009 the penetration of mobile phones was expand very sharply (Karim, Alias, Mokhtar & Rahim, 2009). A few years ago, touch screen mobile phones were introduced into the market, and now the uses of touch screen technology gradually replaced traditional keypads with the emergence of smart phones such as Apple iPhone (Park & Han, 2010). Lipsman (2009) argued that the number of touch screen mobile phones users in the U.S. had grown at a rate of 159 percent in August compared to the previous year with 23.8 million users. Besides that, Petty and Tudor (2010) also reported that 58 percent of touch screen mobile devices are expected to contribute to the worldwide mobile devices sales by 2013 and touch screen technologies are now being integrated into many midrange phones.

There is no doubt that the touch screen interfaces have attracted attention in recent years because their flexibility, functionality and usability have become more widely known and acceptable. It can be used in public-use terminals such as automated teller machines, ticket machines and information kiosks. Recently, they are used for small device interfaces such as Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Many touch screen systems are targeted at the public-market. For that reason, users’ skills and experiences are expected to vary widely. Users would refuse to use a touch screen device if the text entry method was perceived as having low usability.

Consumers, are known as influencers, and mostly influenced by family members when generally purchasing technological devices, as well as by friends when specifically purchasing mobile phones. This could suggest that customers rely on the opinion of their friends when looking for a new phone because friends are more likely use their phones in the same way and frequency as they do, whereas family may include older adults who use their phones differently. These family members, however, are likely to be more experienced or knowledgeable in other technology fields such as televisions, computers, cameras, home printers, appliances and various other items (Tucker, 2011).

Behavior is one of the keys that influence the decision when purchasing mobile phones. It plays a major role in the market success. Mobile communication technology has been intersecting with long standing patterns of behavior. The increasing variety of mobile communication devices is affecting people’s lives dramatically, directly and on a vast scale that no technology has ever adopted so quickly and by so many people’ (Goggin, 2009).

We live in a world where fast communication is many times more essential. Phones and cell phones continue to develop. Many people embrace cellular-phone technology as the device that can fit in a pocket and be carried everywhere, helping people keep in contact with each other. The constant development over the years allows producers to include many features into cell phones.

Certain researchers claimed that touch screen is not a good model for technology adoption study. For instance, Sun and Zhang (2006) criticized that touch screen explanatory power is limited. Nevertheless, there are some researchers who found that touch screen is a significant topic in technology adoption study. For example, there are past studies concentrating on ordinary mobile phones versus touch screen (Lu & Zhang, 2008; Karim et al., 2009; Biljon & Kotze, 2007), mobile internet (Shin, 2007), mobile marketing (Bauer, Barnes, Reichard &, 2005), m-commerce (Yang, 2005), and so forth. These studies are similar to users’ adoption and acceptance of mobile phones. Mobile related study on touch screen is very limited and considerably less pronounced. Due to the lacking of past studies on users’ adoption and acceptance of touch screen, particularly in Malaysia, the factors affecting their satisfaction to adopt touch screen are somehow uncertain at this point of time.

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