• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.32 no.8B
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• pp.553-562
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• 2007

Consumer needs becomes various in a mature mobile telecommunication market, while service differentiation is hard to achieve. Because of the introduction of number portability, switching barrier becomes lower and the competition among telecommunication service providers is getting fierce in order to maintain and obtain customers. Moreover, HSDPA, which is a new telecommunication service, caused the intense marketing activity for the move to the next generation customers. Under these circumstances, brand equity can be a key to a long-term competitive edge for mobile phone service providers. However, there were few researches reporting the mobile telecommunication brand equity, and none of them analyzed if customer equity which particularly is developed at the CDMA market has an effect on HSDPA service. In this study, we identified the determinants of mobile telecommunication brand equity, which is focused on brand image, customer benefit, price, service quality, and marketing activity, and its influence on the HSDPA service subscription behavior. Finally, we suggested the strategic implication of brand management strategies for mobile phone service providers.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.131-150
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• 2014

This study investigates factors, which affect subjective judgment of Smartphone users when they switch to a new product or other mobile carrier, and examine a relationship between switching intention and switching expected performance through users of in Korea and China. The results of the study showed that switching intention is positively associated with switching expected performance in both Korean and Chinese users. Brand reliability, functional quality, and general climate for Smartphone business have a significant impact on switching intention in both countries. In addition, personal innovation has a significant impact on switching intention of Korean users but Chinese. However, content quality has the effect on switching intention of Chinese user but Korean. This study provides useful strategies for switching behavior of Smartphone users of two different countries in the mobile industry.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.243-253
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• 2010

The competition for telecommunication-broadcasting bundle is under full steam. Even large mobile OS companies like Apple and Google are showing signs of moving into the telecom and broadcasting industry, and it is expected that competition for bundle will become even fiercer. In the light of this situation, this study will show which factors can heighten purchasing intention for bundle and lower expected-discounting rates, seeking its answer in the quality, satisfaction, and brand loyalty to core product. The results of the study show that the brand loyalty to core product affects the customer's purchasing intention positively while lowering expected-discounting rates. This conclusion suggests the importance of a marketing strategy that heightens satisfaction of existing customers who use a single item, which is just as important as strategies to induce switching behavior of the customers of other companies through competitive pricing. Also, the results suggest that rather than appeal to loyal customers through discounts, it is more effective to offer them different benefits or value.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.67-74
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• 2018

Purpose - Most of the amendments to the law on the improvement of the distribution structure of mobile communication terminal equipment, the fully self-sufficient system of terminals, and the separated disclosure system on the terminals are aimed at securing transparency of the distribution structure by eliminating or reducing handset subsidies. This study investigates what items are important for the purchase of mobile phones in various and rapidly changing mobile phone markets from the consumer's point of view and tries to make a strategic suggestion for future mobile distribution strategies. Research design, data, and methodology - The procedure of this study takes place in four steps. In step 1, only the SF type respondents selected for this study were extracted through MBTI analysis. In step 2, they were divided into three hierarchies for the AHP analysis and each element was arranged. In step 3, the AHP analysis was converted to a Fuzzy-AHP number using the trigonometric centroid method. This was to eliminate the ambiguity of the response by converting into a fuzzy number even if data consistency was maintained with CI value below 0.1. In step 4, the number of converted 2-layer and 3-layer was combined to derive the priority when the final handset is selected. Results - First, the highest importance among the four items in the second tier was the terminal function item, followed by brand, price, and design item. Second, in the third tier, the highest importance was level of after-sales service, followed by device price, processing speed, ease of use, usefulness, and rate system. Third, the arithmetic average of the determinant of the fuzzy function showed that processing speed, ease of use and usefulness in the function item, level of after-sales service in the brand item, and device price in the price item were the five most important factors among 16 choice factors. Conclusions - First, there will be a change in the consumption patterns of consumers who have compared distributors and dealers to purchase handsets with more subsidies. Second, it is highly likely that people will purchase new handsets only when they need to change their devices because they can not receive subsidies by switching phone brands any more.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.157-176
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• 2012

Brand switching data frequently used in market structure analysis is adequate to analyze non- durable goods, because it can capture competition between specific two brands. But brand switching data sometimes can not be used to analyze goods like automobiles having long term duration because one of main assumptions that consumer preference toward brand attributes is not changed against time can be violated. Therefore a new type of data which can precisely capture competition among durable goods is needed. Another problem of using brand switching data collected from actual purchase behavior is short of explanation why consumers consider different set of brands. Considering above problems, main purpose of this study is to analyze market structure for durable goods with consideration set. The author uses exploratory approach and latent class clustering to identify market structure based on heterogeneous consideration set among consumers. Then the relationship between some factors and consideration set formation is analyzed. Some benefits and two demographic variables - age and income - are selected as factors based on consumer behavior theory. The author analyzed USA automotive market with top 11 brands using exploratory approach and latent class clustering. 2,500 respondents are randomly selected from the total sample and used for analysis. Six models concerning market structure are established to test. Model 1 means non-structured market and model 6 means market structure composed of six sub-markets. It is exploratory approach because any hypothetical market structure is not defined. The result showed that model 1 is insufficient to fit data. It implies that USA automotive market is a structured market. Model 3 with three market structures is significant and identified as the optimal market structure in USA automotive market. Three sub markets are named as USA brands, Asian Brands, and European Brands. And it implies that country of origin effect may exist in USA automotive market. Comparison between modal classification by derived market structures and probabilistic classification by research model was conducted to test how model 3 can correctly classify respondents. The model classify 97% of respondents exactly. The result of this study is different from those of previous research. Previous research used confirmatory approach. Car type and price were chosen as criteria for market structuring and car type-price structure was revealed as the optimal structure for USA automotive market. But this research used exploratory approach without hypothetical market structures. It is not concluded yet which approach is superior. For confirmatory approach, hypothetical market structures should be established exhaustively, because the optimal market structure is selected among hypothetical structures. On the other hand, exploratory approach has a potential problem that validity for derived optimal market structure is somewhat difficult to verify. There also exist market boundary difference between this research and previous research. While previous research analyzed seven car brands, this research analyzed eleven car brands. Both researches seemed to represent entire car market, because cumulative market shares for analyzed brands exceeds 50%. But market boundary difference might affect the different results. Though both researches showed different results, it is obvious that country of origin effect among brands should be considered as important criteria to analyze USA automotive market structure. This research tried to explain heterogeneity of consideration sets among consumers using benefits and two demographic factors, sex and income. Benefit works as a key variable for consumer decision process, and also works as an important criterion in market segmentation. Three factors - trust/safety, image/fun to drive, and economy - are identified among nine benefit related measure. Then the relationship between market structures and independent variables is analyzed using multinomial regression. Independent variables are three benefit factors and two demographic factors. The result showed that all independent variables can be used to explain why there exist different market structures in USA automotive market. For example, a male consumer who perceives all benefits important and has lower income tends to consider domestic brands more than European brands. And the result also showed benefits, sex, and income have an effect to consideration set formation. Though it is generally perceived that a consumer who has higher income is likely to purchase a high priced car, it is notable that American consumers perceived benefits of domestic brands much positive regardless of income. Male consumers especially showed higher loyalty for domestic brands. Managerial implications of this research are as follow. Though implication may be confined to the USA automotive market, the effect of sex on automotive buying behavior should be analyzed. The automotive market is traditionally conceived as male consumers oriented market. But the proportion of female consumers has grown over the years in the automotive market. It is natural outcome that Volvo and Hyundai motors recently developed new cars which are targeted for women market. Secondly, the model used in this research can be applied easier than that of previous researches. Exploratory approach has many advantages except difficulty to apply for practice, because it tends to accompany with complicated model and to require various types of data. The data needed for the model in this research are a few items such as purchased brands, consideration set, some benefits, and some demographic factors and easy to collect from consumers.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.141-156
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• 2008

Market structure analysis is a very useful tool to analyze the competition boundary of the brand or the company. But most of the studies in market structure analysis, the concern lies in nondurable goods such as candies, soft drink and etc. because of the their availability of the data. In the field of durable goods, the limitation of the data availability and the repurchase time period constrain the study. In the analysis of the automobile market, those of views might be more persuasive. The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure of automobile market based on some idea suggested by prior studies. Usually the buyers of the automobile tend to buy upper tier when they buy in the next time. That kind of behavior make it impossible to analyze the structure of automobile market under the level of automobile model. For that reason I tried to analyze the market structure in the brand or company level. In this study, consideration data was used for market structure analysis. The reasons why we used the consideration data are summarized as following. Firstly, as the repurchase time cycle is too long, brand switching data which is used for the market analysis of nondurable good is not avaliable. Secondly, as we mentioned, the buyers of the automobile tend to buy upper tier when they buy in the next time. We used survey data collected in the U.S.A. market in the year of 2005 through questionaire. The sample size was 8,291. The number of brand analyzed in this study was 9 among 37 which was being sold in U.S.A. market. Their market share was around 50%. The brands considered were BMW, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Honda, Mercedes, and Toyota. �� ratio was derived from frequency of the consideration set. Actually the frequency is different from the brand switch concept. In this study to compute the �� ratio, the frequency of the consideration set was used like a frequency of brand switch for convenience. The study can be divided into 2 steps. The first step is to build hypothetical market structures. The second step is to choose the best structure based on the hypothetical market structures, Usually logit analysis is used for the choice best structure. In this study we built 3 hypothetical market structure. They are type-cost, cost-type, and unstructured. We classified the automobile into 5 types, sedan, SUV(Sport Utility Vehicle), Pickup, Mini Van, and Full-size Van. As for purchasing cost, we classified it 2 groups based on the median value. The median value was $28,800. To decide best structure among them, maximum likelihood test was used. Resulting from market structure analysis, we find that the automobile market of USA is hierarchically structured in the form of 'automobile type - purchasing cost'. That is, result showed that automobile buyers considered function or usage first and purchasing cost next. This study has some limitations in the analysis level and variable selection. First, in this study only type of the automobile and purchasing cost were as attributes considered for purchase. Considering other attributes is very needful. Because of the attributes considered, only 3 hypothetical structure could be analyzed. Second, due to the data, brand level analysis was tried. But model level analysis would be better because automobile buyers consider model not brand. To conduct model level study more cases should be obtained. That is for acquiring the better practical meaning, brand level analysis should be conducted when we consider the actual competition which occurred in the real market. Third, the variable selection for building nested logit model was very limited to some avaliable data. In spite of those limitations, the importance of this study lies in the trial of market structure analysis of durable good.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.5-13
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• 2011

This study provides analysis of the effectiveness of domestic marketing strategies of the Korean coffee shop "Caffe Bene". It bases its evaluation on statistical outputs of 'choice attributes,' "market segmentation," demographic characteristics," and "satisfaction differences." The results are summarized in four points. First, five choice attributes were extracted from factor analysis: price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, and location; these are related to coffee shop selection behavior. Based on these five factors, cluster analysis was conducted, with statistical results classifying customers into three major groups: atmosphere oriented; comfort oriented; and taste oriented. Second, discriminant analysis tested cluster analysis and showed two discriminant functions: location and atmosphere. Third, cross-tabulation analysis based on demographic characteristics showed distinctive demographic characteristics within the three groups. Atmosphere oriented group, early-20s, as women of all ages was found to be 'walking down the street 'and 'through acquaintances' in many cases, as the cognitive path, and mostly found the store through 'outdoor advertising', and 'introduction'. Comfort oriented group was mainly women who are students in their early twenties or professionals, and appeared as a group to be very loyal because of high recommendation to other customers compared to other groups. Taste oriented group, unlike the other group, was mainly late-20s' college graduates, and was confirmed, as low loyalty, with lower recommendation activity. Fourth, to analyze satisfaction differences, one-way ANOVA was conducted. It shows that groups which show high satisfaction in the five main factors also show high menu satisfaction and high overall satisfaction. This results show that segmented marketing strategies are necessary because customers are considering price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, location when they choose coffee shop and demographics show different attributes based on segmented groups. For example, atmosphere oriented group is satisfied with shop interior and comfort while dissatisfied with price because most of the customers in this group are early 20s and do not have great financial capability. Thus, price discounting marketing strategies based on individual situations through CRM system is critical. Comfort oriented group shows high satisfaction level about location and shop comfort. Also, in this group, there are many early 20s female customers, students, and self-employed people. This group customers show high word of mouth tendency, hence providing positive brand image to the customers would be important. In case of taste oriented group, while the scores of taste and location are high, word of mouth score is low. This group is mainly composed of educated and professional many late 20s customers, therefore, menu differentiation, increasing quality of coffee taste and price discrimination is critical to increase customers' satisfaction. However, it is hard to generalize the results of study to other coffee shop brand, because this study have researched only one domestic coffee shop, Caffe Bene. Thus if future study expand the scope of locations, brands, and occupations, the results of the study would provide more generalizable results. Finally, research of customer satisfactions of menu, trust, loyalty, and switching cost would be critical in the future study.