| | Technical Summary |
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| | (A) General Opinions related to Mobile Phone Usage |
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| | Of the 1,535 respondents interviewed, more than half of them (52%) reported that the brand of their most frequently used mobile phone was Nokia, followed at a distance by Motorola (13%) and then Ericsson (8%). With regards to their overall satisfaction with the mobile phone, results showed that, using a scale of 0-100, with 0 representing the least satisfied, 100 the most satisfied and 50 being half-half, the average scores attained by the top three market leaders are 75.3, 73.0 and 68.9 respectively. However, it is worth mentioning that certain brands received even higher satisfaction scores from their users, such as Philips (80.0) and Bosch (78.0), although they were relatively less popular among the Hong Kong population.
As on the network operator they currently used, 28% of them answered "Orange" whereas another 19% chose "1010/One 2 Free/1+1", 18% "Smartone/Extra" and 16% "New World Telephone".
Results also showed that the average number of mobile phones that the respondents had changed over the past two years was 2.2 out of the 1,116 respondents who changed phones, i.e. 1.1 per year, while another 26% of the total sample did not change their mobile phone at all. When asked to report the most prominent reason for changing their last mobile phone, 31% of those respondents who had changed their mobile phone during the past two years said the need was triggered by the damage of the previous one. The second and third most popular reasons were "outdated style" (29%) and "lost" (13%) respectively. By the same token, more than one-third of all respondents (37%) claimed that "trendy style" was the most prominent factor when choosing their current phone whereas "reasonable price" (21%) was reported as the second-placed determinant factor, with answers related to the functions available followed behind.
Nearly 30% of the overall sample would simply sell their mobile phone for money when they changed to a new one. Besides, almost equal proportion of respondents said they would give it to their relatives/friends (24%) or keep it up for future use if needed.
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| | (B) Behavior and Attitudes towards After-market Services of Mobile Phone |
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| | Another part of the survey intended to gauge the general public's behavior and expectations towards specific aspects of mobile phone-related services, namely enquiry on functions, repair and maintenance together with after-market services as a whole.
Results revealed that behavior of people in Hong Kong was rather heterogeneous with respect to their preferred action to take when they did not know how to use certain functions of their mobile phone because 41% of them would read the user manual without seeking for anyone's help, whilst another 26% would consult their friends and 19% simply avoid those functions. Other less popular channels, in descending order, were to "seek advice from the network operators (e.g. Hutchison, Sunday), "from the mobile phone suppliers (e.g. Nokia, Ericsson)" and then "from relatives". Of all the available channels, it was found that respondents were most satisfied with the advice provided by their relatives, attaining an average satisfaction score of 82.8 out of 100. They were also quite satisfied with their friend's assistance (75.4) as well as by trying it out themselves (74.1). However, they were relatively less satisfied with the user manual mode (71.4) even though it was the most popular solution.
In cases of mobile phone damage, the picture was different as 43% of the respondents reported that they would seek advice from their network operators while 29% would go to the mobile phone supplier directly. Only 11% said they would visit the mobile phone vendors. Yet, it was interesting to learn that 7% of the respondents would repair the damaged phone on their own. Regarding their satisfaction with the mobile phone repair services they had ever used, the mean rating was more or less the same across all these channels which ranged from 67.7 (mobile phone supplier) to 65.5 (self-repair).
When asked whether they were aware of any after-market services for mobile phones, around three-quarters of respondents (73%) gave positive response in contrast to one-quarter (27%) who said they did not know. As on the importance of the after-market services, an overwhelming percentage (78%) thought it was important, of which 31% chose "Very important" and 47% "Quite important". When further asked what elements they expected to include as regards the after-market services of mobile phone, "repair services" topped the list which accounted for 66% of the respondents, followed at a distance by "hotline enquiry services" (33%) and "sale of mobile phones and accessories" (20%).
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| | (C) General Profile |
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| | The Self-monitoring Scale was used to measure respondents' tendency to regulate their self-presentation. Respondents could score from 0 to 18. Respondents could be categorized into those who regulated their self-presentation to a lesser extent (scoring 0 to 8) or greater extent (scoring 9 to 17; there was no respondent who scored 18). Out of the 962 respondents who completed the scale, there were more people who showed a lesser tendency to regulate their self-presentation. Six hundred fifty-three respondents scored below 9 and 309 respondents scored 9 or above (25th percentile is 5.0, 50th percentile 7.0, 75th percentile 9.0).
When asked to evaluate themselves on the dimension of "sophistication", respondents in general rated themselves quite highly (average of 63.8 on a scale of 0 to 100, with "0" representing the least score, "100" the top score, with "50" being half-and-half; SD=17.3, N=1236) and considered it as a fairly important aspect for themselves (average of 64.0 on a scale of 0 to 100, with "0" representing absolutely unimportant, "100" representing absolutely important, with "50" being half-and-half; SD=19.7, N=1295). Similarly, respondents rated themselves quite highly on the dimension of "excitement" (average 63.1, SD=18.2, N=1261) and considered the dimension to be quite important to them (average 65.0, SD=20.4, N=1302).
Respondents rated their mobile phone quite highly on both the sophistication dimension (average 66.5, SD=15.9, N=1356) and excitement dimension (average 62.1, SD=18, N=1299).
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| | (D) Relations Between Consumers Characteristics and Mobile Phone Selection |
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| | Comparing respondents whose self-presentation was very responsive to situational cues (the top 25% on the Self-monitoring Scale, the high self-monitors) with those who were the least responsive (the bottom 25%, the low self-monitors), the very responsive respondents were more likely to have changed their mobile phones more often in the last two years. Of those who had changed their phone only once in the last two years, 59% were low self-monitors. The high self-monitors made up 77% of those who had changed 4 phones in the last two years, 70% who changed 5 phones, and 100% who changed 8.
Concerning the most important reason for selecting their newest mobile phone, 67% of the high self-monitors mentioned "the brand and model was the most popular" and 60% of the low self-monitors mentioned "most of their friends and colleagues are using the brand and model."
High and low self-monitors did not differ in their reasons for changing their last mobile phone, how they disposed of old mobile phones, and reactions to lack of knowledge of certain functions of their mobile phones.
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| | (E) Relations Between Consumers Characteristics, Mobile Phone Selection and Satisfaction Level |
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| | High and low self-monitors' satisfaction with their mobile phone did not differ systematically. High self-monitors gave an average satisfaction score of 73 (SD=15.1, N=303) and low self-monitors gave 73.5 (SD=13.9, N=313). Ratings on sophistication and excitement dimensions for mobile phone also did not differ for high and low self-monitors. High self-monitors gave an average phone sophistication score of 66.0 (SD=15.1, N=295) and low self-monitors gave 67.0 (SD=15.8, N=298). High self-monitors gave an average phone excitement score of 61.0 (SD=17.7, N=285) and low self-monitors gave 61.9 (SD=17.5, N=290). All Fs<1.
The way respondents viewed themselves was related to the way they viewed their mobile phone. Relative to respondents who did not think that they were sophisticated and sophistication was unimportant to them (sophistication aschematic respondents, N=383), those who thought that they were sophisticated and sophistication was important to them (sophistication schematic respondents, N=444) rated their mobiles higher on the sophistication dimension. Sophistication aschematic respondents gave their mobile phone an average sophistication score of 59.3 (SD= 16.5, N=383) while sophistication schematic respondents gave an average of 72.1 (SD=13.4, N=444) to their phone (F=151.1, p=.00). Similarly, relative to respondents who thought that they were low on the excitement dimension and excitement was unimportant to them (excitement aschematic respondents, N=436), those who thought that they were exciting people and excitement was important to them (excitement schematic respondents, N=485) rated their mobiles higher on the excitement dimension. Excitement aschematic respondents gave their mobile phone an average excitement score of 56.8 (SD=19.3, N=436) while excitement schematic respondents gave an average of 67.4 (SD=15.7, N=485) to their phone (F=83.9, p=.00).
In general, mobile phone satisfaction was related to how sophisticated respondents perceived their phone to be (r =.51, p=.00, N=1323), and perception of phone sophistication was related to how sophisticated respondents perceived themselves to be (r=.35, p=.00, N=1182) and how important sophistication was to respondents (r=.24, p=.00, N=1228). Similarly, phone satisfaction was related to how exciting respondents perceived their phone to be (r=.37, p=.00, N=1271), and perception of phone excitement was related to how exciting respondents perceived themselves to be (r=.33, p=.00, N=1177) and how important excitement was to respondents (r=.26, p=.00, N=1204).
Given the generally positive connotation of "sophistication," it would be a generally desirable attribute to exhibit across a wide range of situations. Therefore, if one were to behave appropriately across situations, then it would socially "safe" to behave in a sophisticated manner, regardless of how important one may think that sophistication is to oneself. Therefore, one would expect that relative to low self-monitors, high self-monitors, who are more responsive to social appropriateness, would behave and consider themselves as sophisticated even if they may think that sophistication is not very important to them. On the other hand, low self-monitors, who are more likely to behave according to their attitudes and traits, would be more likely to behave and consider themselves sophisticated only when they think that sophistication is important to them. As suggested, the relation between self-rating of sophistication and importance ratings of sophistication for high self-monitors (r=.59, p=.00, N=272) was not as strong as that for low self-monitors (r=.71, p=.00, N=275).
Furthermore, the relation between excitement self-rating and excitement phone-rating was slightly stronger for low self-monitors (r=.43, p=.00, N=276) than that for high self-monitors (r=.35, p=.00, N=271). This result suggests that perhaps low self-monitors may be more inclined to select a phone with perceived attributes that reflects their own dimension of excitement.
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| | (F) Relations Between Consumers' Self-monitoring Tendency, Situation Characteristics and Mobile Phone Usage |
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| | In the survey, half of the respondents were asked to imagine themselves participating in an elegant wedding banquet, a situation that could be characterized as being high on the sophistication dimension. The other half of the respondents were asked to imagine themselves participating in a dinner gathering with some fun friends, a situation that could be characterized as being high on the excitement dimension. All respondents were also asked to imagine that they needed to call someone. They were then asked to estimate how likely they will use their mobile in the situation and, assuming that they had used it, how satisfied they would be with the phone. For high and low self-monitors, there was no obvious difference between usage likelihood in the two situations: 2.9 (SD=1.1, N=137) in the sophisticated situation and 3.2 (SD=.9, N=138) in the excitement situation, on a scale of 1(will absolutely not use) to 4 (will certainly use). When asked to estimate how satisfied they would be if they had used their phone in the imaginary situation, there was no obvious difference between the two situations: 70.9 (SD=17, N=137) in the sophisticated situation and 73.2 (SD=14.2, N=138) in the excitement situation.
In further examination, sophistication schematic high and low self-monitors were less likely than their sophistication aschematic counterparts to use their phone in the sophisticated situation (3.0 [SD=1.0, N=56] vs. 2.8 [SD=1.1, N=81]; F=4, p=.05). Perhaps sophistication schematic respondents considered the use of mobile phone in an elegant banquet as a not very sophisticated behavior and therefore were less likely to use their phone.
Being more responsive to situational cues, high self-monitors were a little more willing to use their phone when they perceive their phone to be also sophisticated. For high self-monitors who perceived their phone to be sophisticated, the average usage likelihood rating was 3.3 (SD=.9, N=40), compared to only 2.8 (SD=1.1, N=41) when they perceived their phone not to be sophisticated (F=3.7, p=.06).
As low self-monitors are more likely to behave according to their own attitudes, feelings and attributes, it is reasonable to speculate that if they do not think they would be satisfied with their phone, they would not use it. It was therefore not very surprising that usage likelihood was more closely related to usage satisfaction for low self-monitors than high self-monitors. More specifically, usage satisfaction and likelihood was related for low self-monitors in the excitement situation (r=.24, p=.00, N=161) but the two was not related for the high self-monitors (r=.19, p=.21, N=113). In the sophisticated situation, the relation between the two was comparable for the two groups of self-monitors (high self-monitors: r=.17, p=.01, N=152; low self-monitors: r=.23, p=.01, N=152) .
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| | (G) Relations Between Consumers Characteristics, Situation Characteristics and Future Phone Selection |
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| | What would happen to respondents' future phone selection when they were reminded of certain situational characteristics? After imagining participating in a particular situation, respondents were asked to indicate their preference for certain characteristics in their future mobile phone. Low self-monitors as a group was more likely to prefer mobile phones that were higher in sophistication than excitement, reflecting their lower responsiveness to situations. One the other hand, after imagining participating in a situation high on the dimension of excitement, relative to low self-monitors, high self-monitors were more likely to select a future mobile phone that was higher in the dimension of excitement (F=9.7, p=.00), thus reflecting their higher responsiveness to the excitement situation.
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