Determinants of consumer preferences of the different mobile telecommunications network providers in Uganda

Abstract

Ugandas telecommuntication industry is growing at a fast rate of about 10% and over Nine telecom companies namely MTN; Airtel; Uganda Telecom; Africell; Vodafone; Smile Telecom; Smart Telecom; Sure Telecom; and K2 Telecom Mobile operate and thus there is increased competition in the field of telecommunication operate leading to increased competitiveness.In this light the study deals with determinants of consumer preferences of the different mobile telecommunications network providers in uganda and the objectives of the study include investigating the factors that influence consumers to prefer the mobile service providers, evaluating,the most and the least significant factors that influence consumers preference in mobile services,finding out strategies that be adopted to discourage the mobile service consumer from prefering competitor, ascertaining the attributes that consumer prefers in selecting a particular mobile phone service provider and assessing the the quality of services that the mobile service providers provide to the customers. Specifically under investigation was Customer service quality, Advertisment ,Tariff package ,family and friends,Price family and friends and Network coverage and various hypothesis were tested that s to say relationship between prefering a mobile network with Advertisment,Family &Friends,Internet speed and Price This research problem adopted descriptive and crossctional research design and the study collected information relating to consumer preference towards mobile networks categorical data was collected and analysed, the study was carried out among the students of Makerere Universiy Kampala and Cochran’s sample size formulae was used in order to determine the sample size to be used to represent the whole population of Makerere University and thus it was conducted on 150 students The results derived from the study show that MTN is the most prefered networkfollowed by Airtel and Africell and it also indicate that Internet speed and Family&friends influenced the respondents in prefering a partcular mobile service network While Advertisment and price did not influence the respondents in prefering a mobile network The study also hights that majority of the respontdents are satisified with services offered by their mobile phone service providers.The findings derived from the study will be helpful for mobile phone service providersi n deciding and implementating their sales strategy for the promotion of mobile phone services and The academic world may also benefit from this study as findings from this study shall provide relevant literature for further studies in a similar discipline.marketers may also take clues from this study and improve their customer loyalty strategies.