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1. Introduction
With the advent of Mobile technologies users in developed and developing countries are adopting smart-phones (Han Rebekah Wong, 2012; Smura et al., 2009; Tian et al., 2009). The term Smartphone can be defined as “a mobile phone offering some computer-like functionality, including Internet access” (Kim et al., 2014, p. 578). The smart-phones are more precisely defined by Mohd Suki (2013) as:
A combination of personal device assistants and mobile phones that use advanced operating systems and permit users to install new applications, be constantly connected to the internet, and provide multifarious functionalities of both (p. 236).
With the successful spectrum auction of 3G/4G in April 2014, the race of the smart-phone started in Pakistan. Due to the influx of smart-phone and mobile internet, the traditional short messaging services (SMS) has been replacing by the social networking sites like Viber, Whatsapp, Facebook etc (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), 2015). The 1.8 billion mobiles were sold globally in 2013, in which smart-phone share account for 53.6 per cent, February. The smart-phone users in Pakistan are 14.6 million which is expected to rise to 40 million by the end of 2016 this means that Pakistan prospects rich business sector with a major segment of unmet needs.
The versatile functionality and trend of the smart-phone have raised its demand (Park and Chen, 2007; Kozinets, 2015) and made it undividable part of consumer life (Goldman, 2010; Shin, 2012) including status and lifestyle. The intense usage of the smart-phone make the consumer more familiar, more engage in social relations, have more interpersonal networks and are in contact within and outside of the social system (Mohd Suki and Mohd Suki, 2007). Mobile technologies offer versatile customers experience, engage them continuously, create satisfaction and value for them (Kim et al., 2013). As the users are deeply attached to their smart-phone so the past experience of user provide the basis for the purchase behavior in future (Kuhlmeier and Knight, 2005).
Because of the popularity, the smart-phone demand shaping factors are complex and a single factor cannot determine them, that varies among persons (Mohd Suki, 2013). The digital devices that involve two-way interactions, they have researched well in human-computer interaction but have not been researched much in marketing domain. A...