International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 9 [Special Issue - May 2011] 205 Mobile Phone Adoption & Consumption Patterns of University Students in Pakistan Ishfaq Ahmed* Tehmina Fiaz Qazi Hailey College of Commerce University of the Punjab Pakistan E-mail: ishfakahmed@gmail.com* Abstract This study explores buying and re-buying activities of mobile phone; Preferences for Brands, Purchasing features and Network providers; Account recharge activities and Calling & Texting patterns of mobile phone users in Pakistan. For this purpose questionnaires were used as data collection tool. Students were selected as population and Simple random sampling technique was used consisting of 500 respondents as total sample size. 400 students responded back comprising 80% response rate for this study. This leads to conclude that mobile phone users in Pakistan are not exhibiting addictive or over excessive usage pattern of mobile phone; they are loyal customers of network providers, Nokia is their favorite manufacturing brand and U-fone is their favorite network provider and consider almost all features of mobile phone at the time of purchasing. Key words: Mobile Phone, Buying and Re-buying factors, Brands, Purchasing features, Network providers, Account recharge, Calling & Texting patterns, students, professionals, Pakistan. Introduction Luxurious inventions are the miraculous output of technological revolution. Up-gradation of communication channels has given a new face to the ways of correspondence among people thousands of miles away from each other. Fixed telephone was invented in 19 th century but invention of a “portable” cell phone was a fast turn into the chain of technological expansion. A furious growth can be seen into the development mobile phone technology. First official mobile phone was used in 1946 by Swedish Mobile and 1 st strictly calling “portable cell phone” was created by company, Motorola, in 1983 (www.tech-faq.com ). Afterwards, mobile phone usage proved to be contagious over period of time. Researches revealed that 1 billion mobile phone users were accumulated in 20 years after its creation but growth was so unbelievable that it took just 40 months to strap up another 1billion and then only 2 years to hit the 3.5billion users‟ mark (www.mobilephonereviews.org ). Every comfort introduced by technological development also brings some hostile impacts along with. Likewise, mobile phone technology has connected the masses in a magical way but its excessive usage has brought many negative implications as well. People are no more taking it as an accessory; rather it has been becoming a necessity of life. Users keep looking for upgrading of brands, models, network providers and other mobile phone related accessories. Users seem so obsessive about all mobile phone related activities that its usage is going beyond the limits of needs towards the spheres of addiction. Among the major non-drug addictions of this century, mobile phone addiction is becoming a powerful phenomenon as proclaimed by Psychiatrists. Economic loss and social isolation are the sufferings which an addictive victim passes through. They proposed that feeling an overwhelming need to use the cell phone for more than half an hour per day is the symptom of being mobile phone addict (www.smh.com.au ). Excessive or obsessive use of cell phone leads to a mental disease “mobile phone dependence syndrome” as proposed by Yang. A drop in incoming calls or text causes the arousal of such symptoms especially among non-confident, unsociable and eccentric people. (www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com ) On the list of top 10 countries, Pakistan ranked 10 th with largest number of mobile phone subscribers (www.blog.myxnote.com). An increase from 300,000 (2001) to 90 million (2008) in Pakistan has been observed (www.techlahore.com ). Total mobile phone users were estimated to be 98 million in May, 2010 as per announcement made by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Mobile phone users were growing at a rate of 0.55% in April, 2010 and this rate increased to 0.72% in May, 2010 (Attaa ). Mobile phone industry is one of the fastest growing industries of consumption goods. Its users are multiplying with each day passing and it encompasses almost all type of customer segments including not only students but professionals as well.