RESEARCH ARTICLE Evaluation of the best smartphone model in the market by integrating fuzzy-AHP and PROMETHEE decision- making approach Shankha Shubhra Goswami . Dhiren Kumar Behera Accepted: 30 October 2020 / Published online: 15 March 2021 Ó Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2021 Abstract Smartphones nowadays have become the most globally demanded electronic devices. Each year, almost thousands of new smartphone models are launched by different brands having diverse specifi- cations and variable price range. Due to the availabil- ity of large smartphone quantity in the market, sometimes the buyers get confused about the most appropriate model to buy at low price with respect to descent hardware specifications. This research article states such a type of decision problem and solves it using multi-criteria decision-making techniques that enable the mobile users to select the best smartphone model. The main objective of the study is to choose the best smartphone model among 10 selected models available in the market with the help of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and preference ranking organization method for enrichment of eval- uations (PROMETHEE) where FAHP based on trapezoidal fuzzy numbers is used to evaluate the criteria weights and PROMETHEE is used to propose the preference ranking order of the alternatives. Seven important specifications (i.e., criteria), namely price, storage capacity, RAM, battery, screen size, camera and clock speed, are considered based on which the selection procedure is carried out. PROMETHEE I provides the partial alternatives ranking and shows the mode of preference of each model over other models, whereas PROMETHEE II delivers the complete ranking of the alternatives which recommends Realme 5i and Samsung J6 Plus as the best and worst model, respectively, among the group. Keywords MCDM  Smartphone  FAHP  PROMETHEE I  PROMETHEE II  TFN JEL Classification 61  D81  M11 Introduction With the flow of time, our technology is continuously developing and becoming strong day by day. One of the most important technological aspects that occupies 50% of the global market is the smartphones (Statista 2012). According to a statistic by Statista (Statista 2012), about 51% of the technology consumers worldwide confirmed that smartphone was the most important device for them (Statista 2012). The statis- tical data (Statista 2020a) shown in Table 1 clearly indicate that the demand of smartphones is increasing each year which in turn increases the production volume ultimately and it is estimated that the produc- tion volume of smartphones would reach 1.52 billion units in 2021 (Statista 2020a). S. S. Goswami (&)  D. K. Behera (&) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang, Odisha 759146, India e-mail: ssg.mech.official@gmail.com D. K. Behera e-mail: dkb_igit@gmail.com 123 Decision (March 2021) 48(1):71–96 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40622-020-00260-8