The influence of demographic factors on the purchase evaluation criteria of mobile phones in Sri Lanka.

Abstract

During this second decade of the new millennium, maximizing the potential of mobile phones is a challenge that will engage governments, the private sector, and the development community alike. Mobile phones manufactures are constantly looking for new ways to differentiate themselves. The communization of this market causes a deeper view into what drives a consumer purchase of one brand over another. so the research problem is to “Identify the influence of demographic factors towards the purchase evaluation criteria of purchasing mobile phones in Sri Lanka” The research objective is to identify the influence of gender, customers’ age groups, level of income, customers’ level of education and customers’ level of occupation towards purchase evaluation criteria of mobile phones in Sri Lanka? The research is quantitative and both primary and secondary data collection methods were used to get information. Primary data was collected from a questionnaire of 100 respondents from the through convenience sampling. The data collected was analysed using SPSS and statistical tools such as frequencies, percentages, mean, mode, median and standard deviation, regression, correlation, r square, ANOVA and hypothesis testing were used to analyse data. According to the study done by the researcher, we can clearly see that the Sri Lankan customers consider the utilitarian criteria as more important when purchasing a mobile phone than the hedonic criteria. Under the utilitarian criteria the Sri Lankan mobile phone users consider more about the durability of the mobile phone they purchase and secondly consider the price of the mobile phone.