Brand Equity comparison of Asian vs American Smartphone Brands in an Emerging Market – using Masstige Theory

Abstract

The emerging market of India recently became the 2nd largest market for smartphones surpassing the USA. For most leading smartphone brands, India is a crucial market. Through this paper, an effort is being made to understand the competition between various smartphone brands. When smartphones are considered, a huge determinant in the consumer purchase decision, is the prestige value associated with that brand’s name. The mass prestige further becomes an indicator of brand equity. This kind of study is very less investigated in the context of smartphones, and hence will enrich the mass prestige (masstige) studies greatly. For this study four brands have been considered: a) two American brands – Apple & Google; and b) two Asian brands – Samsung & OnePlus. The brand equity comparison of these brands is done by measuring the masstige values for each of them. This masstige value will be measured using the “Masstige Mean Scale”. The research was conducted by collecting data from people residing in India, who are users of smartphones from the above mentioned four brands. These individuals were provided with a structured questionnaire, which inquired about the various measures of brand equity like – perception about quality, brand knowledge and mass prestige. The results from this study showcase the difference in consumers brand perception – depending on the country of origin, for that particular brand. The paper will further elucidate, the possible reasons behind the occurrence of such differences.