A Study on the Usage of Mobile Application Store. An Approach to Reflect the New Mobile Context

      Аннотация: Recent rapid technology development has increased electronic device capability to perform everyday tasks. Consequently, the mobile application store (MAS) has become an innovative market solution that promises the development of a new revenue stream for operators, handset OEMs, and application developers. A clearer understanding of MAS user behavior is required by operators and developers to improve product and service quality and to attract users. Despite the existence of prior research related to the MAS, there is a lack of research reflecting the new attributes of user habits within the MAS context. This study examines the factors that influence the usage of MAS from their perspective. We have redefined critical mass and adopted the subjective norm from previous studies. We suggested Trust in Developer, proposed a new construct, namely, level of openness, to develop our new research model to explain MAS use. An online questionnaire was conducted to collect 250 responses from mobile phone users who had experience with MAS. Test results show that all of the proposed hypotheses were supported, except Trust in Developer’s Integrity and Benevolence.

Ключевые слова: Mobile Application Store (MAS), app store, MAS Usage, critical mass, Level of Openness, Trust in Developer