Drivers and barriers of mobile entertainment: empirical study from a Malaysian survey

Mobile entertainment is a newly emerging and rapid developing segment. Waning ARPU pushes Malaysian telcos to search for other sources of income. Value-added mobile data services were expected to foster industry growth. The youth are the most fertile groups for absorbing and incorporating the changes in mobile communications development. This research intends to look at the drivers and barriers for the adoption of mobile entertainment services in Malaysia. The factors observed in this study include perceived benefit; concerns pertaining to pricing, product and technological standardization, privacy and security; as well as influences from peers and community. An analysis of a Malaysian survey of 384 respondents between 18 to 25 years reveals that there is a statistically significant difference between both genders in issue pertaining to product and technological standardization. There are also statistically significant differences in perceived benefit and pricing issue between prepaid and post-paid subscribers. Moreover, the results show that subscribers placed greater importance on perceived benefit of mobile entertainment services compared to other factors. Results of the survey also uncover that there are strong positive correlations between all the factors, with pricing issue-perceived benefit showing the strongest relationship. This paper aims to provide an extensive study on the drivers and barriers that could be used to derive architecture for entertainment service provision to serve as a guide for telcos to outline suitable approaches in order to encourage mass market adoption of mobile entertainment services in Malaysia.