ABSTRACT
The study is on the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu local government area with aim to examine the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Itu L.G.A, to determine the preferred mobile phone brands by farmers, to find out the agricultural uses of preferred mobile phone brands by the respondents, to ascertain the factors that influence farmers brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu L.G.A. The study made use of primary data which are gotten from the distribution of the research questionnaires; the sample size for the study is 200. The study made use of the paired sample t-test and Pearson correlation method for the analysis. The study therefore concluded that there is a statistically significantly (0.00) strong relationship (0.849) between the responses of the respondents that said that there is significant relationship between farmer’s socio-economic characteristics and their preference for mobile phone brands and those that said that lack of adequate financing is the major factor affecting the ability of farmers to acquire their preferred brand of mobile phones in Itu local government area.. The study also made useful recommendation to assist the federal government in decision making
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
The mobile phones dominate most of modern human in every movement of life and their activities in seen the communication effectiveness among farmers in most the Nigeria societies (Okon, 2001).
Nowadays this is becoming a part of basic needs of a person as means of communication across the world during the last fifteen years. Every individual use mobile for not only communication purpose, but also it became a personal assistance to make an everyday life easier (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001).
According to (Mokhlis, S. & Yaakop, A.Y., 2002) stated that the development of mobile communication technology e. g. wireless internet, mobile phone, MP3 player, GPS navigation system has been a long journey of innovation, which is constantly evolving and updating as a result of farmers changing needs and brand preferences.
There is a problem of hard competition among various brands of mobile phones in the market. Every day a new phone is launched with enhanced features and technology. Nevertheless of the fact that this competition has provided the farmers a wide variety of mobile phones to choose from at the same time there is also confusion prevailing in the minds of farmers about which of particular mobile phone suits their requirements the most (Sultan and Chan, 2002).
This problem of choice is known as brand preference. Brand preference has negatively impacted the marketers as well as consumers. For marketers increase in competition leads to decrease in sales for mobile phones as market share is now divided among more sellers. For farmers, it involves opportunity cost, i.e. cost of foregoing best alternate.
The use of mobile phone by most farmers plays a significant role in the growth of communication among farmers and communication of new ideas in agricultural development in most of the Nigerian communities especially the rural areas (Islam, (2011).
As the growth of the Nigeria economy depends on rural development, much attention needs to be paid to the agricultural sector and the farmers who are the main, yet one of the weakest actors in the economy (A. Grönlund, 2011). It is against this background that the study wishes to examine the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase using Itu local government area, akwa Ibom state as the case study.
1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
The use of mobile phone by most farmers plays a significant role in the development of agricultural development and communication purposes among farmers in Itu local government area of Akwa Ibom State; but the major problem facing the farmers in this area is lack of various network providers in this area. Apart from MTN network, other network seems not to be available and this have a negative effect on the farmers brand preference for advanced mobile phone such as android, iphones etc because of the issue of limited data available for surfing the net for new ideas in agricultural development. Secondly there have been other studies on the as regard brand preference for mobile phone but not even a single study has been carried out by research on the determinant of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu local government area; hence a gap in literature.
1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The main aim of the research work is to examine the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu local government area. Other specific objectives of the study include:
- To examine the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Itu L.G.A
- To determine the preferred mobile phone brands by farmers
- To find out the agricultural uses of preferred mobile phone brands by the respondents
- To ascertain the factors that influence farmers brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu L.G.A
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The study came up with research question so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives of the study. The research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- What are the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in Itu L.G.A?
- What are the preferred mobile phone brands by farmers?
- What are the agricultural uses of preferred mobile phone brands by the respondents?
- What are the factors that influence farmers brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu L.G.A?
1.5 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
Hypothesis 1
H0: there is no significant relationship between farmer’s socio-economic characteristics and their preference for mobile phone brands
H1: there is significant relationship between farmer’s socio-economic characteristics and their preference for mobile phone brands
Hypothesis 2
H0: the agricultural uses of preferred mobile phone brands by farmers is significant to agricultural development in Itu L.G.A is not gender dependent
H1: the agricultural uses of preferred mobile phone brands by farmers is significant to agricultural development in Itu L.G.A is gender dependent
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The study of the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase will be of immense benefit to the entire farmers in Itu Local government area of Akwa Ibom state, the state government and other researchers that wishes to carry out similar research on the above topic as the findings from the study will educate farmers on mobile phone brand preferences from agricultural purpose, the study will reveal the factors that influence farmers brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu L.G.A. Finally the study will contribute to the body of the existing literature on the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase.
1.7 SCOPE OF STUDY
The study on the determinants of farmer’s brand choice for mobile phone purchase is limited to farmers in Itu Local government area of Akwa Ibom state; the study will cover mobile phone brand preferences from agricultural purpose and also the factors that influence farmers brand choice for mobile phone purchase in Itu L.G.A
1.8 LIMITATION OF STUDY
Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
BRAND: is a distinguishing symbol, mark, logo, name, word, sentence or a combination of these items that companies use to distinguish their product from others in the market.
CHOICE: an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.
TELECOMMUNICATION: This is define as communication over a distance, generally by electronic means (Hutchinson New century Encyclopedia, 1995).
TELEPHONE: Instrument for communicating by voice long distance, invented by United States inventor Alexander Graham Bill (Hutchinson New century Encyclopedia, 1995). Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM): This is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe technologies for second generation (2G) digital cellular networks. Developed as a replacement for first generation (1G) analog cellular networks, the GSM standard originally described a digital, circuit switched network optimized for full duplex voice telephony. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2011).
TELEDENSITY: The number of landline telephones in use for every 100 individuals living within an area. A teledensity greater than 100 means there are more telephones than people. Third-world countries may have a teledensity of less than 10.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2011).
BLUETOOTH: Short range radio technology expanding wireless connectivity to personal and business mobile devices enabling users to connect their mobile phones, computers, printers, digital cameras and other electronic devices to one another without cables.
SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS): A text message communication service prescribed by the European Telecommunications Standard Institute. A single short message can contain text up to a maximum of 160 characters and can be promptly transmitted provided the receiving terminal is on and within the mobile network transmission range.
MULTIMEDIA MESSAGE SERVICE (MMS): This is a new standard that is being defined for use in advanced wireless terminals. The service concept is derived from short message service and allows for non-real-time transmission of various kinds of multimedia contents like images, audio, video clips e.t.c.
GENERAL PACKET RADIO SERVICE (GPRS): This provides packet switched data primarily for GSM based 2G networks. GPRS network elements consist of two main elements: Service GPRS support node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS support node (GGSN).
WIRELESS APPLICATION PROTOCOL (WAP): This is the de facto worldwide standard for providing internet communication and advanced telephone services on digital mobile phones, digital assistance and other wireless terminals.
