A marketing model for mobile wireless services

Mobile data services integrate handheld and Internet technologies to create new value propositions (Keen and Mackenzie 2001), in a social context, over time (Rogers 1995). Yet, this value can only be realised through new behaviours, including acquiring the enabling technology, learning to use it, applying it to solve problems or add value in everyday life, and communicating what one has learned about it to other prospective users. This article explores the recent emergence of the mobile data services phenomenon in Malaysia and Singapore, and analyses survey data from over four hundred cell phone subscribers to identify a marketing model that targets the needs of early adopters, identifies the information channels that reach various types of innovators, then examines the linkages among early adopters and other segments over time and across markets.