An evaluative and behavioral analysis of the consumers of the mobile telephone sector before and after numerical portability

Abstract

In 2007, numerical portability was introduced as an attempt to increase competition in the mobile telephone sector. In this context, it was considered that changes may have occurred in respect to the evaluation of services, benefits, and satisfaction by the consumers and, therefore, a comparative analysis of the users of this sector based on satisfaction indicators and some of its antecedents and consequents were chosen as the main objective of this study. The principal component analysis was used in order to reduce the number of variables as well as cluster analysis to assign users into reasonably homogeneous groups. A random sample of users from a large Brazilian capital was considered, totaling 1,596 valid observations, with 840 before and 756 after portability. Four constructs were contemplated: Perceived Quality, Perceived Value, Consumer Satisfaction, and Loyalty. The analysis revealed the existence of three clusters, before and after portability: (i) The Optimists, that are the users whose evaluations and perceptions regarding the constructs considered are more positive; (ii) The Skeptics, composed by those with more negative evaluations and perceptions; and (iii) The Undefined Critics, that are the ones with relatively low evaluations of perceived quality and relatively high evaluations of perceived value. An important result refers to the larger proportion of users after portability among the relatively more satisfied consumers. The clusters were also compared in terms of other variables and significant differences were found in terms of age, gender, income, mobile operator, and average expenditure, but only after portability.

Key words: mobile telephone services, numerical portability, consumer behavior, cluster analysis.