How Social Impact Affects Smartphone Brand Loyalty

ABSTRACT

Recently, we have seen strong smartphone brands are associated repeatedly with exceptional sales, such as buyers queuing at Apple Stores on the first day of product release while some others are not. However, what factors influence our decision on choosing a particular brand of smartphone? Finding answers of this question is meaningful to the academic field as well as the sales of smartphones. This study tends to understand how product functions and social aspects have relationships on the emergence of the aforementioned phenomenon through validating a proposed model based on the survey results. A total of 319 valid questionnaires from smartphone and nonsmartphone users in Taiwan were received by this study. Our study found social dimensions namely, convergence, innovation, and network externality were the antecedents for product utility, and these antecedents are indirectly influencing to brand loyalty. Some implications and suggestions for smartphone manufacturers/retailers, governments, and academics are also given.

KEYWORDS:

• Smartphone
• brand loyalty
• social impact
• product utility

Additional information

Funding

This study is partially supported by the grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan [grant numbers: MOST 106-2410-H-147-005-MY2; MOST 107-2410-H-004-091-MY2].