An Empirical Investigation of Customer Loyalty in Chinese Smartphone Markets with Large-Scale Data: Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi Cases

In recent years, the eco-systems consisting of hardware, operating systems, applications and other services have increasingly become important for mobile phone businesses, and the diffusion of smartphones expedites this trend at a rapid pace. Moreover, the shortened lifespan of smartphones makes it harder for smartphone companies to retain their customers for a long time. In this study, we aim to identify the antecedents of smartphone users’ satisfaction and loyalty (CS&L) and then examine how the three primary components of smartphones, i.e., hardware, software, and service, can affect CS&L differently through their cognitive and affective beliefs. We developed a theoretical model based on the cognitive-affective system theory of personality, and then tested the research model with large-scale empirical data (N = 710), collected from Chinese smartphone users. In an additional analysis, we compared the leading smartphone brands in China (i.e., Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi) in terms of customer switching, and found that different strategic focuses of those companies on hardware, software, and service have dissimilar impacts on CS&L.