Contemporary smartphone competition is generally described as the battle between Apple's proprietary platform and Google's open platform. However, this competition is not limited within smartphone adoption itself. User's pre-adoption of one mobile pla...
Contemporary smartphone competition is generally described as the battle between Apple's proprietary platform and Google's open platform. However, this competition is not limited within smartphone adoption itself. User's pre-adoption of one mobile platform via smarphone can be connected to the post-adoption of the same mobile platform based on the other smart devices (e.g. smart pad). In this study, we investigate whether user's preference to a certain platform is persistent over mobile ecology, from the pre-adoption of one smart device to the post-adoption of following devices. For this investigation, we adopt the dual-model as the ground theory, where post-adoption of IT product is explained by both dedication and constraint factors.
The empirical testing first evidences that dual model works well as our research model for identifying the reasons of post-adoption. Next, we group our data into two parts in order to compare the switching behavior of iPhone users and Android phone users. iPhone users show much lower switching rate to Android based smart pads, while Android phone users show higher churn rate to iPad (49.3%:96.3%). Especially, satisfaction showed much stronger effect than switching cost on the continuing intention of existing platform, when the analysis is given to the iPhone user's group. From this result, we can conjecture the relatively stronger loyalty of iPhone users. More managerial implications on the mobile platform strategy are driven.