The rise of mobile internet: the adoption process at the bottom of the pyramid

The purpose of this study is to provide an insight into the adoption process of mobile internet (M-internet) among bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) customers.

An empirical survey was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Data were collected from a total of 387 BoP customers from Bangladesh. PLS-SEM was applied to test the proposed model.

The findings in this study reveal that BoP customers’ life satisfaction, internet literacy, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use significantly influence a customer’s intention to use M-internet, while these relationships are partially mediated by the attitude toward M-internet. Furthermore, price perception was found to directly influence intention to use M-internet and to have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between attitude toward M-internet and intention to use M-internet. Also, intention to use M-internet was found to have a significant influence on BoP customer’s M-internet adoption behavior.

The findings of this study help to understand what drives and impedes the M-Internet adoption behavior of BoP customers in a developing country like Bangladesh.

This is the first study that incorporated BoP customers’ life satisfaction and internet literacy to investigate the BoP customers’ adoption process of M-internet in the context of developing countries. Overall, this study contributes to the limited literature regarding the BoP customers’ M-internet adoption behavior. The results of this study will help the M-internet service providers of Bangladesh and other similar developing countries to understand the BoP customer’s adoption process regarding M-internet to create successful policies and strategies both for the service providers and policymakers.