Measuring Consumer Satisfaction in Rural Mobile Telecom Services A Mediator Analysis

Abstract

India has 6,49,481 villages (census 2011) where 68.84% population resides, each newlinevillage with an average population of about 1,200. Most of the Indian states have newlinepopulation density of 250 people per square km and some states it is as high as 700. newlineMost of the households in rural India earning are below Rs.4,000 per month. India is newlinethe 2nd largest telecommunication market in the world, with 70 percent of the newlinepopulation live in rural areas. newlineIndia has the total mobile subscriber base of 1183.41 million users as on 31st March newline2018, out of which 662.18 million users are urban mobile subscribers and 521.23 newlinemillion users are rural mobile subscribers (DOT Complied data). The telecom sector newlinein India largely comprises of wireless connections. There is a disparity between the newlineurban and rural tele density coupled with saturated urban tele density, declining newlineaverage revenue per user (ARPU) per month, minutes of use (MPU) per connection newlineper month. There is huge untapped rural telecom market exist for telecom service newlineproviders. The mobile call rates and data rates are the cheapest in the world. Mobile newlinecommunication services made a significant contribution in changing the lifestyle of newlinepeople by transforming and revolutionising their work and patterns of interaction newlinethrough innovative ways of communication and other uses. The telecom industry is in newlinethe consolidation phase and there are challenges to sustain the business with hyper newlinecompetition with existence of various service providers. newlineThe present study is built on the premise by considering mobile telecom services as a newlinespecific domain to measure innovativeness and consumer satisfaction in consumers. newlineThe idea to select this particular domain is based on continuous innovations related to newlinevoice; data and value added services in telecom sector to gain financial benefits and newlineinterest of purchasers that evolved new functionaries and customized offers over the newlinelast few years (Faullant, Fuller and Matzler 2012). The Consumer innovativeness in newlinemobile telecom services is conceptualized as