Factors Affecting Students Buying Behavior

of Smartphone
Joynal Abedin Shanto
Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University

Abstract
The main objective of this learning is to examine the factors that influenced most before making purchase
decision of desired Smartphone for a student. The target population of the study was current students of
Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh. This is basically a descriptive research with
quantitative data collection and 135 sets of questionnaires were distributed by using convenience sampling
method. Both primary and secondary data were explored and mostly five substantial factors i.e. product
features, price, brand name, media advertisement and social influence were chosen and analyzed by using
SPSS. In the data analysis stage it’s clear that on an average 87.936% students critically support about the
influence of examined factors. It also derives the most usage Smartphone brand and product features that
mostly influence to buy a Smartphone among students and the significant of other 4 factors. The findings
would deliver vital inputs to marketers and strategic planner in framing their marketing strategies as well as
researcher for further attempt to examine the factors that affecting students’ buying behavior of
Smartphone.

Key Words: Consumer Buying Behavior, Smartphone, Product Features, Factor Analysis
Introduction
The development of mobile phones is leading the market into a situation where the basic need,
communication, is actually broadened to new means of interaction and personal digital assistance (Hansen,
2003). Nowadays Mobile devices have become an essential part of people’s daily lives especially for
students, to communicate with people, create social networking, shoot photos in hangout, download songs
and games, texting and so on. Due to the ability of providing, obtaining, and sharing personal and social
information of Smartphone, students are more often tending to use it. The price of the Smartphone is kinda
high but still the demand is increasing. People get advanced and become updated every day, so they prefer
advanced high tech product to price comparison. Technology, Smartphone’s features & facilities have
played a vital role in attracting the people towards Smartphone. Besides, technology and brand there could
be other so many marketing stimuli factors that could influence the consumer behavior of Smartphone
buyers. Moreover advertisement celebrity endorsement influences people to buy Smartphone as it reflects
their desire personality. Sometimes surrounding people include friends and family also force or influence
the buying behavior. Therefore this research is primarily focused to find out factors that affecting buying
behavior of Smartphone specifically for students. So companies who engage in continuous research of
consumer decision making process will also get help to explore the factors affecting in area of the purchase
of Smartphone. Marketer may gain information about the factor that cause consumer to request a
Smartphone and understand the features of Smartphone that request by consumer such as design, OS,
hardware configuration, screen size, resolution and quality, camera, storage and also battery life.
Understanding the factors that have influenced students purchase intention will help strategic planner to
pull young generation in Bangladesh to buy their companies Smartphone and increase the sales among
young adult and so on.
Literature Review
Smartphone can be defined to be a device that enables the user to make telephone call and at the same
time has some features that allow the user to do some activities that in the past was not possible unless
using a computer or a personal digital assistant (PDA) such as sending and receiving e-mails, amending an
office document (Cassavoy, 2012). Most of the mobile phones nowadays are addressed as Smartphone„,
because they offer more advanced computing power and connectivity than a contemporary mobile phone.
Along with the Smartphone fundamental capabilities to make voice call, video call, SMS, and MMS,
Smartphone have been repositioned as a ―new information medium (May & Hearn, 2005). Smartphone is
major extensions on normal cell phones. Smartphone first appeared more than 20 years ago in 1992
(although they were not called Smartphone back then). The first handset to actually be called a Smartphone
was the Penelope from Ericsson in 1997. Fast forward to 2001 and there were Palm OS, BlackBerry OS and
Windows CE coming onto the scene. But operating systems were largely affected in 2007 when Apple Inc.
introduced the iPhone. Quietly, another operating system was stretching its wings, Android, an open-
source project which was backed by Google, HTC, Intel and several other influential companies. Android OS
was introduced in 2008 for the first time. HTC was first manufacturer to make Android phones and Android
is quickly becoming a favorite OS for Smartphone manufacturers then came wide operating systems
Windows Phone in November 2011 by Nokia/Microsoft collaboration.

Actually it’s been a long road to get us understand where the evolution of Smartphone is today, but the
history of the Smartphone is always been an interesting journey. The journey of mobile phone began in
1989 by licensing of cellular mobile phone company Pacific Bangladesh Telephone Limited in Bangladesh. In
Bangladeshi market so many Smartphone local and international brands are available e.g. iPhone, Nokia,
Samsung, Sony Ericson, HTC, Motorola, LG, Symphony, Micromax, Walton etc. And day by day Smartphone
uses in Bangladesh is growing rapidly and people are switching from featured phone to Smartphone.

Consumer behavior is the study of how individuals or groups buy, use and dispose of goods, services, ideas
or experience to satisfy their needs or wants (Kotler and Keller, 2009). Solmon (1996) describes consumer
decision making process in five stages: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives,
purchase and post-purchase behavior. Consumer can be influenced by personal factors, environmental
factors, marketing factors, situational factors psychological factors, societal factors and some others factors
which are beyond dimension. Usually for a product consumer often directed from some product related
specific factors like product quality, price, brand, product convenience etc. Similarly for Smartphone there
are some specific factors like operation system, features, brand, price, quality, camera etc. direct consumer
decision to choose a particular brand of Smartphone.

A study from Bangladesh Uddin, Lopaand Oheduzzaman (2014) emphases on factors affecting customers’
buying decisions of mobile phone where 7 independent dimensions are resulted in factor analysis e.g.
physical attributes, pricing, charging and operating facilities, size and weight, friends, colleagues and
neighbors recommendations and advertising. Respondents are selected from Khulna City, Bangladesh in
equal number of male and female based on demographic profile female including age, gender, income,
marital status, educational qualification and occupation. The results show that the most important factor is
physical attributes. Some other factors are pricing, charging and operating facilities, size and weight,
friends‟ and colleagues‟ recommendations, neighbors‟ recommendations and advertising. From Dr. Sainy
(2014) an assessment of the factors affecting the buying behavior according to gender differences of
Smartphone users among the Business school students in central India, 5 factors influences remarked
named product feature, brand name, pricing, social influence and demand of the Smartphone. Where social
influence and demand of the Smartphone is out of attributes but as students are more tend to tech
advance social factors influences and crates the demand. Sata (2013) investigates the factors affecting the
decision of buying mobile phone devices in Hawassa Town, Ethiopia based on 6 important factors i.e. price,
social group, product features, brand name, durability and after sales services with the demographic
characteristics of the respondents. Resulted consumer’s value price followed by mobile phone features as
the most important variable amongst all and it also acted as a motivational force that influences them to go
for a mobile phone purchase decision.

Mokhlis and Yaakop (2011) focuses on studying the importance of different choice criteria in mobile phone
selection among Malaysian consumers where 7 independent dimensions are resulted in factor analysis e.g.
innovative features, image, price, personal recommendation, durability and portable aspects, media
influence, and post-sales service. The study heightens awareness of consumer behavior and its influencing
factors and suggests that product’s innovative features is the most important in the student selection of
mobile phones. According to Hussainy et al. (2008) media advertisement is very much influencing fetor
that could direct customer buying decision. And for students apparently advertising may have the potential
contribution to brand choice. Ling et al. (2006) examined users preference levels with five factors mobile
phone design features namely, camera, color screen, voice-activated dialing, Internet browsing, and
wireless connectivity. In a survey of teenager, both male and female reported that they always seek for
advice and opinions of their friends based on fashion-related items and tend to purchase the similar clothes
that their friends wear as Nelson and McLeod (2005). According to Wilska (2002) the consumption and
lifestyles of young people have always been less characterized by the “traditional” collection of material
objects than is the case for older age groups.

Based on previous research studies and literatures reviewed the 5 factors are identified and selected for
this research study. Accordingly 5 factors Smartphone feature, price, media advertisement influence, social
influence factors are defined to identify the affect students buying decision of a Smartphone.

Research Methods
The target population of the research is current students of Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-1342,
Bangladesh. To get useful results and ease of data collection a sample size was 135 Smartphone user’s
students were selected to represent the entire population. And a structured questionnaire is used as an
instrument for surveying the consumers which are close ended questions. In the questionnaire 5 factors of
27 variables sample size is determined to reach both male and female who were current students in age
range of 19-25. To select the respondents the method that used for sampling is convenience sampling,
which is non-probability sampling.

The questionnaire was relatively short (consisting of only 27 items) and easy to understand. There were
three sections in the questionnaire. Section A of the questionnaire included information pertaining
respondents‟ demographic background i.e. gender, education background, source of buying/getting
Smartphone and then their brand name of using Smartphone. Section B to measure the 7 variables about
product features namely design and appearance, OS, hardware configuration, screen size, resolution and
quality, camera, storage and battery life in five point likert scale (5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neither
agree nor disagree, 2=disagree and 1= strongly disagree). Section C attempted to seek additional factors
influences categorized under Price, Brand, Media Advertisement, and Social influence from the
respondents.

The answers provided by respondents are kept private and confidential and data analysis begins after the
data have been collected and processed. In the data analysis stage, various interrelated methods were used
to run through and reorganize the gathered data. Microsoft Excel and SPSS software was used for data
input and statistical analysis to get effective outcome of quantitative data.
Results and Discussion
The targeted respondents of the study are classified to 64% male and 36% female based on Jahangirnagar
University student’s ratio of last 5 years. From 135 copies of distributed survey questionnaires effective
information received 100 percent responses from respondents. Among 135 respondents‟ student, 119
students which is 88% bought the phone and 16 students which is 12% got as gift. Finalized 119
Smartphone users in age range of 19-25 are majority from under graduate 86%.
Figure 1: Using Brand of Smartphone

According to using brand of pie chart students’ most used Smartphone brand is Symphony which is found
from 28% of the respondents. After that Samsung is found in second position from 21% and Nokia from
19% responding students. But the most amazing finding is that local brands are in leading position around
43% which is considering large market share.

Table 1: Product Feature

Strongly Strongly
Features Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Disagree
The best design and
appearance 42.0% (50) 43.7% (52) 11.8% (14) 1.7% (2) .8% (1)
Operating system (iOS,
Windows, Android) 46.2% (55) 41.2% (49) 10.1% (12) 1.7% (2) .8% (1)

Hardware Configuration
(RAM/ Processor) 42.9% (51) 36.1% (43) 17.6% (21) 1.7% (2) 1.7% (2)
Screen size, resolution
and quality 42.0% (50) 42.0% (50) 10.1% (12) 5.0% (6) .8% (1)
Camera 52.9% (63) 24.4% (29) 12.6% (15) 6.7% (8) 3.4% (4)
Storage 30.3% (36) 47.1% (56) 16.0% (19) 4.2% (5) 2.5% (3)
Battery Life 46.2% (55) 27.7% (33) 17.6% (21) 5.0% (6) 3.4% (4)

Mean 43.21% 37.46% 13.30% 3.71% 1.91%

As shown in table 1, the scores obtained from the respondents reveals that Operating System (OS) is the
most important factor they considered before buying a Smartphone where 46.2% of the respondent
strongly agreed and 41.2% agreed. The second most important factor that considered by respondents is
best design and appearance. As illustrated in table among the respondents 43.7% agreed and 42.0%
strongly agreed about consideration. Then comes screen size, resolution and quality, camera, hardware
configuration, memory, and eventually Smartphone’s battery life is lower than traditional Featured Phone.

Factor Analysis
KMO and Bartlett's Test

The result obtained from 119 respondents had been thoroughly analyzed and the outputs of the results had
been clearly explained in this section. To analyze the strength of association among variables the Kaiser-
Mayer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was applied. The KMO measure of sampling adequacy
was computed to determine the suitability of using factor analysis. It certifies whether data are suitable to
perform factor analysis. The value of KMO varies from 0 to 1 and high values (close to 1.0) generally
indicate that a factor analysis may be useful with the data. The closer the KMO measures to 1 indicate a
sizeable sampling adequacy .8 and higher are great, .7 is acceptable, .6 is mediocre, and less than .5 is
unacceptable. From the above Table 2 KMO score .724 indicates adequacy for testing.
Scree Plot

The examination of the Scree Plot provides a visual of the total variance associated with each factor. The
steep slope shows the large factors. The gradual trailing off (scree) shows the rest of the factors usually
lower than an Eigen value of 1. In choosing the number of factors, in addition to the statistical criteria
should make initial decisions based on conceptual and theoretical grounds. At this stage, the decision about
4 factors is final.
 Rotated Component Matrix
Component
1 2 3 4
Q6a I considered price as the most important factor .038 -.084 .174 .713
when buying a Smartphone
Q6b I frequently searched information about price .275 .114 -.107 .718
before buying
Q6c I waited for discount/ price reduction before buying .772 -.035 .051 .148
Q6d I think using Smartphone is luxurious overall .459 .225 .235 -.381
Q6e I considered brand as the most important factor -.061 .703 .401 .120
when buying a Smartphone
Q6f I preferred to buy an internationally recognized .058 .761 .025 -.080
brand of Smartphone
Q6g I believe that international brand of Smartphone are .111 .739 -.028 -.082
better than local brands
Q6h I will buy only my desired brand of Smartphone .409 .566 -.198 .097
Q6i I think my decision to buy a Smartphone is .652 .051 .011 .163
influenced by advertisement and other media
Q6j I collected Smartphone information from .552 .030 -.051 .390
advertisement and other media before buying
Q6k I buy only the products or brands which are .636 .200 .244 -.089
advertised on different media
Q6l I would like to buy a Smartphone which is endorsed .559 .205 .427 -.366
by my favorite celebrity
Q6m I think my decision to buy a Smartphone is .157 -.252 .674 -.221
influenced by family & friends
Q6n I seek for information about Smartphones from -.014 -.065 .701 -.012
family & friends before buying
Q6o I regularly got suggestion to use Smartphone from .046 .144 .672 .083
family & friends
Q6p I think having a Smartphone is a status symbol .135 .211 .393 .093

To reduce the data and make variables, factor analysis was performed on each of the variables, using the
Principal Component Method, whereas Varimax with Kaiser Normalization was used for factor rotation. All
the variables were standardized and then grouped by factor analysis. Rotation converged in 7 iterations. 4
factors with given values greater than or equal to 1.0 and attributes with factor loadings greater than 0.5
reported. The factor analysis was conducted on the sample of 119. After doing the factor analysis 16 items,
grouped into 4 factors given in table. The Rotated Component Matrix shows the factor loadings for each
variable.

From the Rotated Component Matrix analysis discount/ price reduction, influence of media, collected info
from media, advertising brand and celebrity endorsement are grouped into Media Advertisement influence
factor. Brand, international brand, international brand believe, buying desired brand are grouped into
Brand influence. Decision influenced information search and suggestion to use by family & friends are
grouped into Social influence factor and Price consideration and information about price before buying
grouped into Price influence factor.
 Table 2: Overall Factors Influence
Disagree
Strongly Agree and
Neutral and Strongly
Agree
Factors Disagree
(Mean Value in %)
(Mean Value in %)
(Mean Value in %)
Product Features Influence 80.67 13.3 5.63
Media Advertisement Influence 52.6 27.88 19.5
Brand Influence 56.53 31.1 12.4
Social Influence 60.23 25.77 14
Price Influence 69.75 21.85 8.45
Factor Mean of Three Point Scale 63.956 23.98 11.996
Differentiate from Agree 63.956 35.976
Differentiate from Disagree 87.936 11.996

From Table 2 result from overall factors influence including product features, media advertisement, brand,
social influence and price influence have seen that on an average more than 60% respondents admit the
greater influence of these factors in choosing their desired Smartphone while on an average more than 20%
of the respondents were remained unbiased and on an average below 15% of the respondents considered
this aspect in a reverse way. And on average 87.936% respondents critically support or could not deny the
influence of these factors.

Conclusion
The objective of the research was to evaluate underlying factors that determine a students‟ decision to buy
Smartphone. This study basically serves the purpose of advancing the understanding of the factors affecting
the buying behavior of Smartphone among students and analyzing the impact on different factor. Study
done previous in reality, suggests a lots of variables that customers consider before choosing a desired
brand of Smartphone. From that it holds some of the factors influence customers‟ decision greatly while
others have comparatively low impact on the purchase decision. That’s why this study specifically drags
some factors through scientific methods. The factor analysis results shows that there are 4 factors that are
affecting the buying behavior of students namely price, brand name, media advertisement and social
influence along with product features.

Recommendations
As huge portion of Smartphone users are students and price conscious of having no or less personal
income, Smartphone companies could bring different promotional strategy for students. Local brands like
Symphony, Walton should have to evolve continue effort in marketing activities in order to hold their
leading position in market competing to international brands. Smartphone companies should concentrate
about best design and appearance as students prefer this feature more. At the same time camera which is
craze for young adult students as well as need to improve battery life. Besides students attracted towards
different media advertisement so that Smartphone companies should provide more advertisement on
different media to pull student especially in social networking sites.
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