Mobile Handset Buying Behavior of Different Age and Gender Groups

The prime objective of the study was to understand the variation in the importance given by different age and gender groups to the select factors while buying mobile handsets in India. The study concludes that the mobile handset users of age group of 18-30 years are less price sensitive than consumers of other groups; rather they consider ‘physical appearance’, ‘brand’, ‘value added features’, and ‘core technical features’ more important than users of any other age groups. On the contrary, the consumers of age group 50 years and above have given greater importance to ‘price’ than consumers of other age groups. There were significant differences between different age groups as regards to the importance given to all the factors except ‘post purchase services’. The difference was highest for the ‘brand’ closely followed by ‘core technical features’ of the handset. Gender differences have also existed for these factors.


Introduction
India is the world's 12 th largest consumer market.It is projected that by 2025, it will be ahead of Germany and will become the fifth largest economy of the world.There is an explosive growth in almost all the areas of consumer goods and services.Communication that accounts for 2 percent of consumer's spending today will be one of the fastest expanding categories with growth of about 13 percent (McKinsey, 2007).Mobile telecommunication industry has shown a tremendous growth over the last few years and at present there are about twenty crore (1 crore = 10 million) subscribers of the mobile telecom services in the country.The market for the mobile handset is also growing with the growing demand for mobile telecom services.This demand will continue to grow in future also.India at present is the second largest market for mobile handsets (Indian Brand Equity Foundation, 2005).The growth in this sector has been improved due to liberalization of telecommunication laws and policies.The consumers of both rural and urban areas, from college -going students to mature elders, of almost all income groups have started using mobile telecom services.The growth is fastest in mobile services as compared to fixed lines where it is modest (The World Factbook, 2008).Some of the consumers particularly college -going students have to rely on their parents for the buying of products like mobile handset and automobile.This is so because large majority of such people are not economically independent till the age of 22-24 years.Therefore, they have to satisfy themselves with what their parents buy for them.But now-a-days, these people have become more able to influence their parents in buying the products of their choice.This is probably due to small family size of one or two children these days, where parents comply more with the requests of their children as compared to the past.
The increasing competition between the telecom service providers has increased demand for both mobile telecom services as well as the handsets.According to Indian Brand Equity Foundation (2005), the mobile handset market, which was worth about $ 2 Billion two years ago, had shown a growth of 60% per annum.The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) handsets had 84% share and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) handsets has 16% market share.There are various players in the GSM market.Nokia was leading the market with 59% market share (Prashant, 2005).Among the other players, the prominent are Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and LG.They are offering wide range of models for the users of different preferences.The manufacturers are introducing newer and newer models in quick succession of time.They are motivated to do so because Indian mobile subscribers are prepared to pay for upgrades, value-based services, and advanced models.The cut throat competition between manufacturers has forced manufacturers to reduce their costs and therefore, they are thinking of manufacturing handsets in India.The low wage rates will help manufacturers to reduce their costs (Indian Brand Equity Foundation, 2005).Besides this, the service providers and manufacturers are offering value added services to make up losses in revenues, which have resulted due to decrease in tariff rates.Thus mobile value added services has become an important element in the growth of mobile telephony in India.
Mobile phones today have moved beyond their fundamental role of communications and have graduated to become an extension of the personality of the user.In spite of breeding of offers for content-rich mobile data services other than text messaging, the adoption of advanced services such as mobile phone payment, online mobile gaming and mobile email have yet to reach the noteworthy levels of usage in India.There is a discernible preference for mobile phones with color screens over those with black and white displays.Short Message Service (SMS) is very much popular and its importance is increasing further as the subscribers can now participate in large number of contests/polls etc. Consumers are also making wide use of handsets for clicking photographs, playing games, downloading icons/screensavers/logo/ring tones, sending camera-phone taken photos, and playing offline games with their mobile phones.And yet the consumers are expecting much more from their mobile phones.
For many years now, service providers and telecom equipment manufacturers have been debating the convergence of fixed and mobile telecommunications.The debate that was started on cost benefits has turned into a commercially viable option for service providers.Mobile service providers, who were once competing fiercely with fixed-line operators, are now facing stiff competition from alternative technologies.Their revenue stream fuelled by voice minutes is rapidly declining not because consumers are making less calls, but because alternative technologies are providing voice services at very competitive rates.As market is driven by consumers' demands for high-quality voice services at lower prices, the service and equipment providers have to work closely to develop new innovations.
India is the second-fastest growing major economy after China.There is an increasing emphasis on consumption and infrastructure development.The growing economy has created large number of employment opportunities and consequently, the spending power of an average Indian has increased than ever before.This has resulted in higher disposable incomes and faster acceptance of new technologies with a willingness to pay for these.Sabnavis (2002) identified three different consumer types of three generations in India.Traditional consumers of pre-liberalization phase (1960-70s) were, stable, inward looking and had limited choices.They kept their family needs on the top and their own personal needs were subordinate to their family needs.They avoided risk.In the transient phase (1980-90s), the consumers were more risk taking than their predecessors.They had experienced multi-choices and had a tendency to be better off than their parents.Economically, they had no fears or concerns.The new millennium consumer tends to enjoy life.He has greater self-control, and looks for personal style and pleasure.Exposures to variety of products and enhancement of economic status have changed the attitudes of the upper middle -class consumers towards brands.Indian society being hierarchical in nature is therefore, status conscious (Sahay and Walsham, 1997).Indians give very high value to brands.In India, a brand is a cue to quality because the quality of the unbranded products varies widely (Johansson, 1997).According to study conducted by Maxwell (2001) on testing of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of global consumption in a cross-cultural price/brand effect model; Indian consumers in comparison to Americans are tougher for the marketers to sell their products.However he found Indian consumers more price and less brand conscious.

Literature Review
Technological innovations such as cellular phones and digital televisions have attracted the attention of marketing researchers as regards to their adoption process (Saaksjarvi, 2003).Rogers (1976) has provided a classification of adopters in terms of innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.But now consumers are also looking into the compatibility of the new products to their self-image and life style (Saaksjarvi, 2003).Funk and Ndubisi (2006) observed a considerable association between color and the choice of an automobile.The study further identifies the gender moderation on the relationship between different color dimensions and the product choice.According to Barak and Gould (1985), younger consumers are greater fond of fashionable/stylish products than older ones.Young consumers are normally more willing to try new products and they are interested in asking more information than older ones.It makes them self-confident and that is why they are more likely to be opinion leaders and less hesitant in brand switching.But one should not ignore the older consumers also.The studies have revealed that the older consumers are wealthy, innovative and they also have a tendency to be the part of a typical consumption system (Szmigin and Carrigan, 2001).They can be a prime market for the luxury products.However they give more preference to comfort or convenience than any other feature of the product.It also needs to be recognized that most older people accept and enjoy their life stage, and are as willing to spend their money as any other generation, but only if the product and the message are relevant (Carrigan and Szimigin, 1999).On the other hand, the youth, which is more informed, pragmatic, opportunistic, demanding and restless, will always seek excitement in products and services (Sharma, 2004).It is normally perceived that young buyers try new products, seek greater information and are more self-confident in decision-making.Elderly consumers are selectively innovative and they accept only those innovations that provide exclusive benefits (Nam et al, 2007).Therefore, age and life cycle can be the delicate variables (Kotler and Keller, 2006) in the consumer behavior process.
H 1 : The importance of factors varies among different age groups.
Men and women purchase and relate products for different reasons (Dittmar et al, 1996).They are subjected to different social pressures (Darley and Smith, 1995).Male and female have a propensity to be right and left hemisphere reliant respectively (Meyers-Levy, 1994).Males are generally self-focused while females are responsive to the needs of both self and others (Meyers-Levy, 1988).Coley and Burgess (2003), in their empirical study on wide range of products such as clothing, consumer electronics and books etc. had found significant differences between men and women with respect to both affective and cognitive process components.Rocha et al (2005) had also experienced different requirements for clothing and fashion products based upon age and gender.Laroche et al (2000) had found gender differences in relation to acquisition of in-store information for buying Christmas clothing gifts.Vankatesh and Morris (2000) studied the moderating role of gender in the adoption of a new software system.They revealed that the determinants of adoption vary between genders; perceived usefulness of the technology was the major factor considered by men for the acceptance of new software.In contrast, the perceived ease of use of the software and the normative influence (i.e.influence of peers and superior perception) were found key determinants for women.Ease of use and normative influence had not been found significant for men.Men consider the most prominent sign; they are more likely to focus on task effectiveness of a technology without considering risk.In contrast, women are detailed processors and consider all information available including the ones that are understated and potentially disconfirming.Women are then more likely to incorporate risk and other secondary information in their decisions and behavior (Graham et al, 2002).Williams (2002) investigated the effect of social class, income and gender effects on the buying perceptions, attitudes and behavior.The products like dress clothing, garden tools, automobiles, wedding gifts, living room furniture, children's play clothing, kitchen appliances, casual clothing and stereos were selected that varied in durability, necessity, expressiveness and gender orientation.The study emphasized on understanding the evaluation criteria, which correspond to product attributes and the benefits expected by the consumers.Both men and women rated utilitarian criterion high over the subjective criterion.Women attached importance to all criteria across all products, while men gave importance to only price.However Goldsmith (2002) found consistency for both men and women while examining personal characteristics of frequent clothing buyers.
H 2 : The importance of factors is gender specific.

Methodology
The study has been carried out by interviewing 240 consumers based on convenience sampling during November 2007, to April, 2008 with the help of a questionnaire in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar cities of Punjab state (Province) of India.The cities were chosen for the reason that even though the mobile telecom services are expanding across the country, yet these are concentrated in urban areas (The World Factbook, 2008).The respondents who were using GSM mobile handsets were asked to rate the select factors on a five point scale (1 for lowest consideration and 5 for highest consideration) that they considered most while buying their latest mobile handsets.These factors were selected from the study conducted by Nasir et al, (2006) on laptop purchases.Five of the seven factors evolved through principal component analysis of the study were selected keeping in view of their relevance to the mobile handsets.This is so because mobile phones technologically in India are perceived as recently innovative as laptops.The sixth factor-'brand' was selected for the reason that it is being considered as the proxy for the quality determination in the absence of any other intrinsic quality determinant in case of mobile handsets.Indians give very high value to brands.In India, a brand is a cue to quality because the quality of their unbranded products varies widely (Johansson, 1997).
The prime objective of the study was to understand the variation in the importance of the factors given by different age and gender groups.Among the 240 consumers, 122 were male and 118 were female.These were further classified into three groups based on their age.These three groups were 18-30 years, 30-50 years, and 50 years and above.There were 96 respondents (48 male and 48 female) of 18-30 years age group, 78 (40 male and 38 female) of 30-50 years group, and 66 (34 male and 32 female) of 50 years and above age group.Two-way ANOVA has been applied for the data analysis and drawing conclusions.The approach was chosen to understand both main independent impacts as well as interaction effects of variables -age and gender.The respondents were asked to rate the following factors: 'Brand', 'Physical Appearance' (weight, size, color and design), 'Price', 'Value Added Features' (messaging, music, games, videos, photos etc), 'Core Technical Features' (GPRS, Bluetooth, memory etc), and 'Post-Purchase Services' (warranties, maintenance and repairs, technical support etc).

Limitations of the Study
The study has been carried out with two variables -age and gender.However consumer buying is a complex process in which number of factors like social status, economic factors and psychographic factors influence the buying of the consumer.

Data Analysis and Results
The distribution of respondents of different age and gender groups has been summarized in Table 1.
The frequency distribution of mobiles handsets being used by the respondents at the time of study has been summarized in Table 2.
The overall importance of factors influencing mobile handset buying has been summarized in Table 3.It can be inferred that overall, 'physical appearance' of the handset got the highest importance (4.01) and 'core technical features' got the least importance (3.30).'Brand' (3.78) was considered the second most important factor (3.78) followed by 'postpurchase services' (3.73).'Value added features' (3.65) got greater importance than both price (3.47) and core technical features.
It can be further inferred from Table 3 regarding the differences in three age and two gender groups about the importance of factors influencing buying decision of mobile handsets.'Physical appearance' (4.33), 'brand' (4.27), 'value added features' (4.21), and 'core technical features' (3.85) influence the age group of 18-30 years more than consumers of other age groups.These consumers have given least importance to 'price' (2.94).The consumers of age 50 years and above are price sensitive as they have given greater importance to 'price' (4.06) than any other age group.They have given least importance to 'core technical features' (2.39) that is the least importance given to any factor among all the three age groups studied.Like 18-30 years age group, the consumers of 30-50 years age group have given the highest importance to 'physical appearance' (4.08) closely followed by 'brand' (4.00).These consumers like 50 years and above age group have given least importance to 'core technical features' (3.38).They have rated 'Post -purchase services' highest (3.82) than any other age group.'Brand' (3.93) closely followed by 'physical appearance' (3.92) has been the highest rated by male respondents.'Price' (3.56) got the least importance from the male respondents.On the other side, female respondents gave highest importance to 'physical appearance' (4.10) and least importance to 'core technical features' (3.00).'Physical appearance' is the only factor that has been rated high by female respondents than their male counterparts.However in 18-30 years age group, the same has been rated high by male consumers than their female counterparts.All other factors have been rated high by male respondents than their female counterparts among all the age groups except 'post-purchase services' in 30-50 years age group; where the rating of female respondents is greater than male respondents and 'price' in 50 years and above group; which has been rated equally by both the gender groups.Male consumers of 18-30 years age group rated 'Physical appearance' (mean 4.38) the highest among all the factors studied across different age and gender groups.Female consumers of 50 years and above age group rated 'core technical features' (2.00) the least among all the factors studied across different age and gender groups.
The difference in three age and two gender groups about the importance of factors that influence the buying decision of a mobile handset has been summarized in Table 4.No interaction has been observed between two variables -age and gender for any of the factors studied.This implies that the effect of each variable was independent of each other.Hypothesis H 1 has been found largely true.There were significant differences between different age groups as regards to the importance given to all the factors except 'post -purchase services'.'Post -purchase services' have been given importance to an equal extent by the different three age and two gender groups.The difference has been found the highest for 'brand' closely followed by 'core technical features'.These differences further go on decreasing for factors -'value added features', 'price' and 'physical appearance'.This is so because that the consumers of 18-30 years age groups have given more importance to 'brand', 'core technical features' and 'value added features' than consumers of other age groups.On the contrary, the consumers of age group 50 years and above have given greater importance to 'price' than consumers of other age groups.The significance is comparatively less in 'physical appearance' factor.This is so because that even many mature consumers are also style conscious.Hypothesis H 2 has been found partially true.There are significant differences between two gender groups for 'core technical features' and 'brand'.Male respondents have greater tendencies to prefer handsets with advanced and latest technical features than their female counterparts.The differences between genders are relatively less significant in terms of value added features' and 'physical appearance'.No significant differences have been observed between genders for the factors -'price' and 'post-purchase services'.

Discussion and Conclusions
The mobile telecom services are now being widely consumed by the Indian society.Rather these have become an essential part of their lives.Besides communication, people now seek entertainment and other features that are compatible to their self-image and lifestyle.The self-image and lifestyle may vary among genders and different age groups.Therefore, the study was carried out among consumers of different age and gender groups to understand the importance of factors that influence their mobile handset buying.The intense competition between manufacturers has forced them to expand their market base.The study concludes that the users of age group of 18-30 years are less price sensitive than consumers of other groups; rather they consider 'physical appearance', 'brand', 'value added features', and 'core technical features' more important than users of any other age groups.This may be due to the reason that majority of Indian youth seeks excitement in the products and also they are more exposed (Sabnavis, 2002) to new technological developments than other age groups particularly mature ones.The mature consumers on the other hand may have priorities for other products due to other obligations.That is why they are more price-sensitive.Also they have less knowledge about new technological developments and therefore, consider 'value added features', 'brand' and 'core technical features' less important.Overall, people have given the least preference to the 'core technical features'.This is probably due to the high price difference between handsets with highly advanced technical features and other handsets.Also female consumers gave only low to moderate preference to this factor.As most of the respondents were above 30 years of age and owed family obligations, therefore they have a chance to seek these features in other products also.The study also reveals that the consumer does not bother much about the price of handset provided they are satisfied with other features.This may probably be due to the fact that majority of the respondents were of the age less than 50 years and therefore, their sensitivity to price was relatively less as compared to other factors.The gender differences were very conspicuous in 'core technical features' and 'brand'.This is probably due to less familiarity of female consumers with core technical aspects.Though less significant, yet gender differences also emerged in 'value added features' and 'physical appearance'.The female consumers probably due to their overwhelming orientation to 'physical appearance' of handset do not find 'brand' as much important as men do.Moreover, India remained a man-dominated society over a longer period and Indian women did not enjoy much freedom in terms of independent communication.In India, traditionally, a woman has only been seen as a member in a family or a group in the role of a daughter, wife, or mother.She has largely been denied the role as an individual with an identity, aspiration, or right of her own.Even the British rule could not change the role of women in the Indian society (Ghosh and Roy, 1997).Now with the social change that provides them greater freedom, probably has made Indian women so pleased just with the possession of an independent handset that they are so far less oriented than men to other features such as 'core technical features' and 'brand'.However, in future, these differences may disappear because the attribute-linked satisfaction may change over time (Mittal et al, 1999).Even though the income levels of an average Indian has increased considerably, yet mobile handset is being considered a high value product.Therefore, like other value products, the consumers of all age groups are equally concerned about 'post -purchase services'.'Physical appearance' does matter for all the age groups, though it is of greater importance for 18-30 years age group.This is so because new Indian consumer is more style and pleasure seeking than ever before (Sabnavis, 2002).People in India particularly youth have two types of tendencies -one to show their possessions to others and second relating their possessions to their own physical looks and style.
A handset of reputed brand, smart appearance and with advanced value added features is the choice of 18-30 years age group.However these sets with advanced and moderate core technical features may exclusively be offered to male and female consumers respectively of this age group.Male consumers of 30-50 years age group look for a handset of reputed brand and with all other features moderate, while the female consumers of the same age group prefer to buy a handset of attractive appearance with all other features fair.A handset with moderate appearance, and lowly developed core technical and value added features; is the probable liking of 50 years and above age group but at the low price.However the male consumers of this age group may see brand leverage fairly in selecting the handset but not at the increased price.

Scope for Future Research
The study can be extended to more number of variables such as different income groups, different occupations, and different personality traits and lifestyles of consumers.The future studies may further investigate reasons for differences between different consumer groups.

Managerial Implications
India has become the second largest mobile handset market in the world.It is now worth about US$ 2 billion, but will rush forward by over 60 percent (Indian Brand Equity Foundation, 2005).It is very important for the marketers to understand the preferences of the users belonging to different age and gender groups.The marketers must be very clear about their customer base while offering the products.Different customers value a product or a firm differently.Therefore, all products are not meant for all customers (Ganesh et al, 2000).Therefore, the companies must translate preferences of their target segments into the diverse models meant for different segments.Moreover the companies may design their communication messages according to the factors considered the most important by a definite age and gender group.The companies without any fear of price increase; may add as many frills as they like, for the products to be offered to the young and envied class of 18-30 years group.But at the same time they must consider that there can be some consumers (up to age group of 22-24 years), who though may have these preferences, yet they depend upon others (parents) for finances.In such cases, it becomes important to understand their ability to buy independently.Parents now-a-days often accede to their requests for buying the handsets of their choice when they please their parents with their performance in competitive events such as examinations, sports and other events.The advertising messages showing mutual reciprocation between children and parents in terms of child producing the desired performance in the competitive events and the parents gifting the mobile handset as of his/her choice as an award, may help a lot in breaking this barrier.
In many number of cases, children are taken into confidence when a parent buys an item like handset as a gift to be given to the other parent on special occasions like anniversaries.This implies that these people may not only act as independent buyers, but influence the buying of people of other age/gender groups.The marketers of handsets can earn a lot of admiration from Indian female consumers by offering a wide range (colors and designs) of models that are not only attractive in appearance but also compatible to their physical looks and style.The companies that wish to target Indian youth must strengthen their brand equity besides improving 'appearance', 'value added features' and 'core technical features'.It will help them in increasing their revenues manifold in India due to the reason that Indian market is youth rich with median age of 24 years (The World Factbook, 2008).The companies with poor brand equity may find a niche in 50 years and above age group, provided they reasonably improve 'appearance' and 'post-purchase services' and keeping the prices as low as possible.The gray-market products from countries like China due to the lack of adequate 'post-purchase services'; did not get much success despite all other technical, value added features and low price.

Table 1 .
Distribution of Respondents According to Three Age and Two Gender Groups

Table 3 .
Comparative Importance given by Three Age and Two Gender Groups to Factors Influencing

Table 4 .
Difference in Three Age and Two Gender Groups about the Importance of Factors Influencing Buying Decision of Mobile Handset