A LOCAL ANALYSIS OF A GLOBAL CHALLENGE:
A STEP TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING MOBILE PHONE CHOICE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Multinational corporations may prefer to differentiate their products, and therefore the specifications of their products, for each market segment defined according to the categories they set such as differing lifestyles, age groups, social status, and so on by thinking on a global scale. However, when it comes to designing and/or marketing of these products, national characteristics should be taken into account so that the firm stays customer oriented and thus market success is more probably achieved.

Turkish mobile phone market is an exemplary case where multinational corporations dominate the market. The problem is that these manufacturers’ phone models launched to the Turkish market are not designed by considering the special needs of Turkish users. Assuming that not even an incremental change in the functional characteristics or aesthetic appearance of  mobile phones is foreseen to be needed and tried to be made, research on the decision making mechanisms of users when choosing a mobile phone is necessary in order to understand users and thus serve them at best. Conducting such a research has the potential to reveal out design disasters and product failures beforehand more easily, and firms will be aware of the excess unnecessary costs associated with exporting those models. As a result, control over the product range and market may be more effectively accomplished.

In this study, in order to understand the decision making mechanisms of users, a research is carried out on a segment of the market -university students- because they lie in the “most efficient users” spectrum and they are more capable of evaluating different mobile phones with each other. The research is conducted with two different groups of university students in order to obtain more realistic results. One of these groups evaluated the importance of the pre-specified seven criteria on its own that are related with the specifications of the phone and appropriateness of that phone to their needs. The second group is asked to make pair wise comparisons over a scale of nine between four different phones models that have not been, but is going to be, launched to the market according to the abovementioned seven criteria. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as the core methodology and Expert Choice software is used to evaluate the responses. The analysis showed that there is much to do to improve the usability of mobile phones, product features is more important than personal appropriateness, and some characteristics of a mobile phone –such as standby time- that is usually thought as being very important by users may not be the driving force when making mobile phone decision for Turkish university students.