Adoption of Mobile Internet Services: An Exploratory Study of Mobile Commerce Early Adopters

Even though the literature on the adoption and use of mobile services is quite extensive, surprisingly few studies have been found that have applied traditional models of information and communication technology (ICT) adoption such as the technology acceptance model. This suggests different perspectives have been applied in studies of mobile ICT adoption and traditional ICT adoption. With the introduction of third generation mobile network services, a convergence of mobile services and traditional Internet services is expected. Thus, traditional models of ICT adoption may be applied, improving one’s understanding of the adoption of these services. However, studies of the use and adoption of mobile services have indicated that traditional adoption models need to be extended and modified when applied to mobile services. In this study, we apply a modified version of the decomposed theory of planned behavior to the adoption behavior of early adopters of mobile commerce services. The study shows that the extended and modified model has good fit to the early adopter data and that it explains 49% of the early adopters’ intentions to use mobile commerce services. The model may be used as a basis for industry players’ evaluation of the adoption potential of new mobile services.