Elsevier

Telematics and Informatics

Volume 34, Issue 1, February 2017, Pages 438-449
Telematics and Informatics

Exploring the patterns and determinants of the global mobile divide

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.06.010Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The global mobile divide has decreased during the past 23 years.

  • Average income level had a negative correlation with mobile phone adoption rate.

  • Average income had a positive correlation with mobile phone penetration level.

Abstract

This study explores the patterns of the global mobile divide and the factors that influenced it. It proposes a comprehensive framework to explain mobile phone adoption by integrating technology acceptance model (TAM) and economic consumption analysis. The empirical analysis is conducted using the data from more than 150 countries. The results show that the gaps of mobile phone penetration among different groups of income level countries have decreased during the past 23 years. Average income had a negative correlation with mobile phone adoption rate, represented by the slope of mobile phone diffusion curve. However, average income had a positive correlation with mobile phone penetration, suggesting that there are still gaps of mobile phone penetration between rich and poor countries. Besides average income, other factors, such as legacy phone system, population density, and education level, were also demonstrated to have influence on mobile phone penetration. The framework and findings of this study suggest the potentials for the integration among consumption analysis, diffusion of innovation theory (DIT), and TAM. Strategies for further bridging the global mobile divide are suggested based on the empirical findings.

Introduction

In the information society, information and communication technologies (ICTs) become significant in people’s lives. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) argued that ICTs have become an essential part of human activities (OECD, 2005). The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) alleged that ICTs are the requisites for economic and human development (UNDP, 2001). The United Nations advocated the access to ICT services is one of the basic human rights in the contemporary society (United Nations, 2009), and ICTs make significant contributions to achieve Millennium Development Goals, such as promoting higher education, improving healthcare services, facilitating occupational advancement. However, ICTs exhibit various development patterns in different countries. The concept of the digital divide was developed to describe the gaps between those who get access to ICTs and those who do not (National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), 1999). These gaps reflect the different rates of ICT diffusion processes in different groups of people.

Mobile phone is one of the major ICTs that have diffused rapidly in recent decades. There were 4.08 billion mobile phone users globally in 2012. This number grew to 4.33 billion in 2013, and to 4.55 billion in 2014. The total mobile phone users are likely to reach 5.13 billion users globally by 2017. The smart phone users worldwide were about 1.75 billion in 2014 (Emarketer, 2014). In the United States, more than 64% of adults own a smartphone (Nielson, 2012). However, like the diffusions of other ICTs, the diffusion of mobile phone exhibits different patterns across the world. The gap between the users of mobile phones and non-users is mobile divide, which is one of the significant aspects of digital divide (Jung et al., 2013, Mir and Dangerfield, 2013, Loo and Ngan, 2012). Since the adoption rate of mobile phone has accelerated in recent years, many scholars argued that mobile technology has the potential to bridge digital divide in the globe (e.g. Srinuan et al., 2012, Mir and Dangerfield, 2013, Loo and Ngan, 2012). And many other scholars demonstrated that mobile technology has the potential to achieve multiple development goals, such as economic growth, political participation, and education (e.g. Bomhold, 2013, Martin, 2014, Loo and Ngan, 2012, Prieger, 2013).

Although more evidence is needed to support these arguments of the significance of mobile phones in bridging digital divide and prompting social development, it is undeniable that mobile phones play increasingly important roles in people’s lives as they have diffused rapidly in many countries. At the same time, they have diffused relatively slowly in many other countries. Therefore, it is necessary to explore how mobile phones have diffused across the world, and the different patterns of their diffusion among different countries. The current study proposes a new comprehensive framework to explain mobile phone adoption, and conducts empirical analysis using cross-country data.

Section snippets

The slope of the diffusion curve and the global mobile divide

The s-shaped curve has been widely used to describe the diffusion process of an innovation, with time on the X-axis and the number/percentage of adopters on the Y-axis. At the beginning, the curve is flat because only a few people adopt the innovation. As more people adopt it and the curve becomes steeper. When there are few people left who have not adopted the innovation, and the curve becomes flat again. When this curve reaches its asymptote, the diffusion process is finished. This s-shaped

The current study: conceptual framework and hypotheses

The current study proposes a conceptual framework of mobile phone adoption by integrating the scholarship of TAM and consumption analysis. This conceptual framework is shown by Fig. 1. This framework takes the cost-benefit principle, which is one of the fundamental paradigm in economic consumption analysis and one of the theoretical foundations of TAM, as the crucial criterion for adopting mobile phones. It argues that if a consumer’s perceived benefits of using a mobile phone outweigh his/her

Method

There are two dependent variables in the current study. The first is the slope of mobile phone diffusion curve, which is also the adoption rate of mobile phone. This variable is measured by the average number of new mobile phone subscribers during a period of time. The second is the mobile phone penetration level, which is measured by the percentage of people who had mobile phones. The independent variables include income variable, market size variable, population variables, education variable,

The patterns of global mobile divide

Fig. 2 shows the diffusion curves of mobile phones of different country groups with different income levels. It is the geographical presentation of global mobile divide, as it illustrates the gaps of mobile phone penetration levels between different countries. Obviously, this picture supports the optimistic argument that global mobile divide has been reduced, as it suggests that the catch-up pattern. In particular, the mobile phone penetration level of high-income non-OECD countries was lower

Discussion and conclusions

The current study found that global mobile divide has been reduced to a great extent during the past two decades. The gaps of the mobile phone penetration level between different country groups have become decreased gradually. The bridging of the global mobile divide is the result of the faster adoption rate of mobile phones in poor countries. As shown in the findings, the mobile phone adoption rates of poor countries, represented by the slopes of the diffusion curve of mobile phone, were

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