Risk-Averse Consumers Toward High Involvement Product (Smartphone Case)

Abstract In highly competitive markets with increasing unpredictability and decreasing product differentiation, brand loyalty is a central element of marketing strategies and tactics. Brand loyalty generates benefits like substantial entry barriers to competitors, better ability to respond to competitive threats, greater sales and revenues and the customer’s lower sensitivity to marketing efforts of competitors. In the context of product and brand management, a number of studies have shown various effects of risk aversion on consumers’ decision making. This conceptual paper aims to discuss about how risk-averse consumers behave in choosing particular brand in smarthphone market and how that risk aversion lead to the brand loyalty, brand trust and brand affect.

Keywords: consumers, brand, smartphone, risk aversion, brand trust, brand affect, brand loyalty.

Introduction

The more sophisticated technology development makes people more depend to technology. Today, it seems that people cannot go everywhere without their cell phone. Behind its major functions as communication tools, recently cell phone has grown to be an important element of people life. By using cell phone, people can do their business via email, mobile banking and even searching information.
Nowadays, cell phone technology has developed become smartphone, cell phone that offers sophisticated features with ability and connectivity like computer. Smartphone enables the users to install and run new application as they want and need, smartphone is also provided with big and strong memory, wide screen and outstanding performance. Actually, smartphone is classified into several groups that based on its software application: Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, RIM (Blackberry) and Android.
The total global mobile phone and smartphone market is expected to be worth $341.4 billion by 2015 while smartphone revenue will account for 75.8% of the overall mobile handset revenue at $258.9 billion in the same year

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