Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
SMS is a very important instant communication tool that can be used to serve several purposes. SMS can be used by businesses for advertising and promotion by which they can obtain instant feedback about their products. Also, governments can use it to communicate interested issues with the people as well as for conducting elections (SMS voting). Furthermore, the high number of opportunities to use creative and innovative marketing activities, as highlighted by Haghirian, et al., (2008) in mobile commerce (m-commerce), implies that marketers need to gain insights into relevant issues of consumer behaviour in the SMS context. Also, SMS banking is another application of mobile technology, which was investigated by Amin (2007) who conducted an analysis of mobile credit card usage intention in the Malaysian context.
M-commerce, a natural extension to electronic-commerce, includes any business activity conducted over a wireless telecommunication network, which includes B2C and B2B commercial transactions as well as the transfer of information and services via wireless mobile devices, especially in intra-business (Turban, 2006). Similar to other e-commerce applications, m-commerce can be done via the Internet, via private communication lines or over other computing networks. Currently, wireless devices used in mobile commerce include two-way pagers/short messaging service (SMS), wireless application protocol (WAP)-equipped cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), Internet-enabled laptop computers with wireless access capacity and so forth.
Comparing the three platforms of m-commerce, namely, WAP, GPRS and SMS, SMS is the most popular platform and it was discovered that the use of the short messaging service (SMS) has exceeded all initial expectations (Bauer et al., 2005). This has indirectly resulted in mobile phones being used as an important market instrument compared to other mobile devices. SMS popularity is mainly due to its cost as it is the cheapest information delivery mode. Studies by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) found that, in Quarter 1, 2006, Malaysia ranked second with 56.6 persons owning a mobile phone per 100 inhabitants in comparison to other ASEAN countries (Communication and Multimedia, 2006). The growth of SMS-related services over the past several years reflects the enormous potential of the Malaysian wireless data communication market. This study is, therefore, timely to elucidate the rationale behind the adoption of SMS as a form of communication.