Intergenerational effects of mobile service diffusion in Sweden

Other conference contribution, 2011

This paper addresses the intergenerational effects of mobile telephone service diffusion in Sweden. Using the Norton-Bass and Islam-Meade models, it plots annual mobile service penetration rate data from the year 1956 to 2010 to explain the pattern of mobile telephone service diffusion. The results show that only Norton-Bass model could achieve convergence status in the program iteration. The model fit indicates that Norton-Bass model is still reasonably good for explaining the intergenerational diffusion process. The results also show that the coefficient of innovation p has a lower value than the coefficient of imitation q. This suggests that the diffusion process is affected more by external factors,　such as word of mouth, than by inherent innovativeness of users. Furthermore, the results also indicate that each type of technology has a different market potential with the later technology having higher market potential then the previous. This suggests that there is a positive intergenerational effect on the adoption　decision from the proportion already adopted. Furthermore, the study also recognizes that the intergenerational process of mobile communication technology diffusion is comparable to the evolutionary process of technology in the sense that the process shows two main evolutionary features, i.e. the emergence of technology variation across generation and the selection process from earlier generation of technology to the new one. Therefore, evolutionary framework may be applicable to understand the diffusion process of a technology.