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The erosion of pioneer advantage in the European mobile telecommunications industry

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  • Zulima Fernández
  • Belén Usero

Abstract

This paper studies first-mover advantage in the mobile telecommunications services industry. There are very few empirical studies of pioneer advantage in service industries, possibly because of the difficulty of building competitive advantages in an industry where innovations cannot be protected and competitive actions can be easily imitated. The empirical research was carried out using data from a sample of European mobile telecommunications firms from 1993 to 2005. The findings indicate that an order of entry advantage does exist, but that this advantage diminishes with time in competition. Regarding the impact of the main sources of pioneering advantages, the results show that it is harder for follower firms to erode first-mover advantages when the pioneer has prior experience in the industry and when there are two pioneers instead of one. Lastly, number portability between different operators was found to damage the competitive position of the pioneer firms. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2007

Suggested Citation

  • Zulima Fernández & Belén Usero, 2007. "The erosion of pioneer advantage in the European mobile telecommunications industry," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 1(3), pages 195-210, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:svcbiz:v:1:y:2007:i:3:p:195-210
    DOI: 10.1007/s11628-007-0032-0
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    Cited by:

    1. Asimakopoulos, Grigorios & Whalley, Jason, 2017. "Market leadership, technological progress and relative performance in the mobile telecommunications industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 57-67.
    2. Sang-Gun Lee & Eui-bang Lee & Chang-Gyu Yang, 2014. "Strategies for ICT product diffusion: the case of the Korean mobile communications market," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 8(1), pages 65-81, March.
    3. Juite Wang & Jung-Yu Lai & Li-Chun Hsiao, 2015. "Value network analysis for complex service systems: a case study on Taiwan’s mobile application services," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 9(3), pages 381-407, September.
    4. Usero, Belén & Fernández, Zulima, 2009. "First come, first served: How market and non-market actions influence pioneer market share," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 1139-1145, November.
    5. Muck, Johannes & Heimeshoff, Ulrich, 2012. "First mover advantages in mobile telecommunications: Evidence from OECD countries," DICE Discussion Papers 71, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

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