Factors affecting smartphone shopping.

In recent years, the telecommunication sector has seen its market-leaders change. Today, the market is headed by 11 manufacturers, even though two main companies hold 42% of the market-share (Samsung and Apple). Furthermore, hundreds of models incorporating new functionalities are launched every year. This research is one of the first attempts to investigate functional evaluation in shopping smartphones and to predict future context of this turbulent market. With the use of 264 surveys of real smartphone owners and users, collected online in the first fortnight of May 2015, and the use of Conjoint Analysis (CA), we highlight major attributes consumers take into consideration in buying smartphones. Results show that consumers who decide to buy a smartphone consider Price, Camera performance, Battery-life and Brand. De facto, we find that, in smartphone shopping, consumers brand awareness is less important than technical characteristics. Notwithstanding, running the CA on subgroups defined by the brand of the smartphone owned, we find different attributes’ relative importance. Results show that Apple owners have a stronger brand awareness than Samsung owners. Implications aim to help manufacturers in developing smartphone features rationalizing invested resources, interpreting preferences of customers and reinforcing competitive advantages.