Investigating Smartphone Brand Loyalty for Millennials and Gen Z: A Customer Value Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to examine smartphone users' brand loyalty decisions across and within generation cohorts, Gen Z and Millennials, based on customer value theory. The study discovers value perceptions for the cohorts, utilizes these for identifying distinct consumer segments within the cohorts, and finally, investigates the impact of these value perceptions, on loyalty, for each of the sub-segments. A four-stage analysis involving exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA, and MANOVA was undertaken. Three distinctive clusters were obtained within both Gen Z and the Millennials, and for each of these sub-segments, the influence of the identified value perceptions, when investigated on attitudinal and behavioral components of loyalty, threw striking differences. The paper extends the current understanding of smartphone brand management, particularly from the perspective of identifying value perception-based consumer segments, within the cohorts and mapping the influence of these identified perceptions on both attitudinal and behavioral components of loyalty.