Attitude of IIT Bombay Students towards

Low prices Laptops

Research project
Consumer Psychology
HS 710

By
GROUP 2
Prakash T (123010006)
T. Sai Teja (123010035)
Yeshwanth Reddy (123010047)

Under the guidance of

Prof. A. Khan

Department of Aerospace Engineering,

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
April, 2013

Contents

Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... 4

Background ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Objectives: ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Primary Research Objective: .......................................................................................................... 5
Secondary Research Objective: ...................................................................................................... 5
Research Approach............................................................................................................................ 6
Data collection method ................................................................................................................. 6
Measurement technique ............................................................................................................... 6
Sample .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Analytical approach ....................................................................................................................... 7
Cost and Time requirement: .......................................................................................................... 7
Depth Interview ............................................................................................................................... 10
Primary Questionnaire.......................................................................................................................12
Respondent Profile........................................................................................................................... 14
Chi-Square.........................................................................................................................................21
Attitude towards low price laptops..24
Cluster Analysis ................................................................................................................................25
Conclusion.26
References: ..................................................................................................................................... 27

(Intentionally left blank)

Executive Summary
Laptops are an integral part of todays management students study kit. And with a
plethora of brands inundating the market, each trying to differentiate itself from the other in
terms of features, style, etc and trying to entice the buyer with attractive offers, the decision
of zeroing on the laptop has become a gruesome exercise for the student. The very nature of
the product encourages the prospective buyer to go through all the stages of a typical buying
process. At the same time, a student thinks about the price of a laptop before choosing a
brand. It is not true that if offered at cheaper rate, everyone would go for it. There is always a
brand image associated in every consumers mind. That is the reason that we have taken up
to study the consumer buying behavior for low price laptop buying.
The primary objective of the project can be satisfied progressively by satisfying the
secondary research objectives which are determining the factors, mapping the customer
profile e t c . A primary research based on questionnaires and analytical processing of the
response will be conducted to fulfill the research objectives wherever the secondary data is
not available.
The student community of the IIT campus will form the sample for the research.

Background
The computers have come a long way from their birth as complex mechanical
calculating machines available only to a few large institutions to being ubiquitous complex
electronic systems capable of handling large amount of data and executing complex
calculation in the todays world. Their power and performance has been growing at an
incredible pace which has made them a must-have for every business from a retail shop to
airlines. The ever decreasing price of the computer systems has only added to the trend. All
these factors have increased the importance of computers in the business world and
otherwise at a phenomenal rate especially over the past few years.
As the requirement for better, powerful, compact, faster & higher memory computer
systems grew, smaller & portable computer systems called laptops was introduced. These
wonderful machines are a great help to the user owing to their compactness and capabilities. In
the present age of information, laptops have proved to be an executive s best friend. Their

feature of compactness over desktop PCs gives the user the convenience to work, share
and stay connected while on the go.
But all these extreme features come at a cost. Every brand has variety of configurations and
an equal and respective range of prices. But at the same time, brand image plays a major role
in marketing. This study helps in understanding the basic perception of an IITB student
towards Low Price laptops!

Objectives:
Primary Research Objective:
To study the Attitude of IIT Bombay Students towards Low prices Laptops

Secondary Research Objective:

1. To study the influence of various variables like sex, educational background, family

annual income, work experience, etc on the choice of laptop brand.

2. To probe if the interactions between the above mentioned variables have any effect on
the choice of laptop bought.
3. To group the huge number of attributes into major factors (Factor Analysis).
4. To map the profile of the students in terms of lifestyle, attitude & perception
(Segmentation).
5. To evaluate the student preferences about laptops of different brands available in the
market. (Attribute based perceptual mapping).
6.

And to study how all the above factors influence in the perception towards low price
laptops.

Research Approach
Data collection method
For exploratory research, the following techniques were used:
a. Open-ended questionnaire These questions were used to know what are the
different attributes which a student at IITB looks for while selecting a low priced
laptop.
b. Depth interviews Here, an interview was conducted with students who have start-ups
in laptop business to know what are their ideas about perception of students at IITB
For secondary research, the following sources were used:
a. Websites of different laptop brands to know their unique selling propositions.
b. Other journals and tech magazines available online.
Based on the attributes found out in the exploratory research and the secondary research,
the information gap was identified and hence it was decided to conduct primary research to
fill the gap. The research was conducted by administering questionnaire on the students of
IITB. For primary data collection, Questionnaire administration was done personally and
through online questionnaires.

Measurement technique
Questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. Questionnaire was given to
the respondents through Facebook or emailed to them. Based on the data collected, we used
Excel sheets to analyze the magnitude of each parameter and its influence in the purchase of
low priced laptops

Sample
A sample size of 117 students from IITB was used for the purpose of research.
Students from all the programs (UGs and PGs) were surveyed spanning both the boy and girl
populations to obtain a representative sample. The sampling technique used was gender
sampling so that the same is proportionate to the gender ratio at IITB.

Analytical approach
Firstly, we conducted 3 depth interviews and based on the inputs we obtained, we
prepared a questionnaire. The data collected from the exploratory research provided us
with the different attributes that a student looks for in a laptop.
To determine the profile of various students at IITB so that we can know more about
their lifestyle, attitudes and preferences so as to gain an insight on what kind of laptop they
are likely to choose, we have used a segmentation technique.
Finally to evaluate the student perceptions about laptops of different brands, we have
used the data collected to plot some graphs which gave us a brief idea about the interconnections between different parameters.
Apart from using these three major techniques, we have also used chi square
analysis to evaluate whether the preferences are different for boys and girls and other such
one dimensional analysis.

Cost and Time requirement:

The cost involved with research was only the printing cost of this report. The project
took approximately 15 days for completion.

Depth Interviews:
We conducted depth interview with 1) Ashwini Kumar (B.tech, H7), CEO of KWICK unit,
IIT Bombay, 2) Shatabdi (B.tech, H7), Co-founder of KWICK unit, IIT Bombay. The
secondary data has been obtained from depth interviews we conducted where the
respondents gave us a detailed idea about their understanding of the market. The
conclusions obtained from the same are as below:

1.

Awareness is a very important factor that leads to increase in sales of the new laptop
brands.

2.

Most of the students are brand inclined

3.

Dell is the most popular brand among IITB students from past 2-3 years

4.

Students dont compromise between price and features

5.

Once a budget is fixed for their purchase of laptops, they might will to increase it
by a maximum of 2000/- if good features are offered

6.

Students usually tend to buy those laptops which one of their friends have already
bought.

7.

Financial background of students affect their choice of laptops

8.

Most of the H3 and H4 hostel students prefer low priced laptops whereas H2
students prefer laptops priced >50k

Primary Questionnaire
NAME

PROGRAMME *

Department *

Gender *
Male
Female
Family Income *
LPA- Lakhs Per Annum
< 3 LPA
3 - 6 LPA
> 6 LPA
What is the brand of your present laptop? *

Price range of your current laptop? *

< 40,000 /40,000 - 50,000 /> 50,000 /What was the reason for preferring the current laptop brand? *
Price
Brand
Style/Features
Services & Warranty
Other:

Based on the usage, give the preference *

Academic Usage (Coding & Analysis)
Academic Usage (ebooks, projects)
Internet Browsing
Entertainment (Gaming & Movies)
Other:
Would you prefer a NEW brand offering you all your required features at a low price? *
low price- (20,000-25,000)
Yes
No
If NO, What are the reasons for not choosing a NEW brand?
Trust
Brand name
Quality and assurance
Service
Other:
Submit

Respondent Profile
Primary research was conducted in online as well as personal interview form. The
questionnaire was created using Google forms and distributed to respondents in the IITB
campus. The main purpose behind doing this was to get data from respondent which varied
demographically. A total of 117 respondents filled in the questionnaire. The internet link of
the questionnaire is
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11KV27IJc8uBiFzi2PIb7rQXybksFH5auq6Hmbc5Qx7Y/viewf
orm
The respondents profile can be seen in the following graphs:

1.

Male

95

Female

22

2.

< 3 LPA

52

3 -6 LPA

43

> 6 LPA

17

3.

Acer

Apple

Dell

62

HP

24

Lenovo

11

Sony

15

Others

17

4.

Preference

No.

Price

68

Brand

65

Style/Features

55

Services &
Warranty

51

5.

Usage

No.

Academic Usage (Coding &

Analysis)

21

Academic Usage (eBooks,

projects)

19

Entertainment (Gaming &

Movies)

44

Internet Browsing

30

6.

Yes

58

No

59

7.

Trust

39

Brand Name

30

Service

32

Quality and Assurance

46

Chi-Square
1.

To find out whether the choice of laptop depends on the some parameters of the
individual, we did a cross tabulation of the data and a chi-square analysis of the
laptop choice at 95% confidence level.

A) Hypothesis 1:
H0: There exists a significant relationship between choice of laptop and the gender of the
person at 95% confidence level.
From the analysis, the following results were obtained:
Critical X2 value for 1 degree of freedom (95 % confidence level): 3.841459
Male

Female

Chi-male

Chi-F

DELL

43

10

0.03445

0.010579

expected

41.8

9.68

HP

14

expected

16.15

3.74

Lenovo

expected

7.6

1.76

Sony

expected

9.5

2.2

ACER

expected

4.75

1.1

APPLE

expected

3.8

0.88

Others

11

expected

12.16

2.64

0.286223 0.146417

0.021053 0.032727

0.657895 0.290909

2.223684

1.1

0.010526 1.425455

0.110658 0.155152

The observed X2 values for both Male (3.344488) and Female (3.161238) are less than the critical
value (3.841459). This implies that brand perception in purchase of laptops is not gender based.

B) Hypothesis 2:
H0: The trend in purchase of laptops of different brands is independent of Family Income.
Critical X2 value for 2 degrees of freedom (95 % confidence level): 5.991465

Acer
(5%)

Apple
(4%)

Dell
(44%)

HP (17%)

Lenovo
(8%)

Sony
(10%)

Others
(12%)

Total

< 3 LPA

21

53

Expected

2.65

2.12

23.32

9.01

4.24

5.3

6.36

53

X2

0.687736

0.5917

0.2308

1.109E-05

1.79664

0.9981

0.4229

4.7278

3 - 6 LPA

19

33

Expected

1.65

1.32

14.52

5.61

2.64

3.3

3.96

33

X2

0.2561

0.0775

1.3822

1.2143

0.1551

0.02727

0.0004

3.1130

> 6 LPA

18

Expected

0.9

0.72

7.92

3.06

1.44

1.8

2.16

18

X2

0.0111

7.22

0.0008

0.3672

0.1344

0.8

2.16

10.6935

The observed X2 value for the family income of > 6 LPA category is higher than the critical value for
2 degrees of freedom & 95% confidence level. This implies that income plays a major in purchase of
a laptop.

C) Hypothesis 3:
H0: The trend in individual laptop brands for various departments follows the institute trend.
Critical X2 value for 6 degrees of freedom (95 % confidence level): 12.59158724
DELL

HP

Lenovo

Sony

ACER

APPLE

Others

6.600823

8.057058

13.05198

16.86544

14.24603

33.18734

16.02239

The observed X2 value for Dell and HP is less than the critical value. This implies that the hypothesis is
validated only for these two brands. In other words, the percentage number of students having laptops
of these brands in all departments is more or less the same. On the other hand, the number of
students owning Apple laptops is highly unpredictable. This may be because of the fact that the total
number of owners itself is less for this brand.

D) Hypothesis 4:
H0: The trend in individual departments for various laptop brands follows the institute trend.
Critical X2 value for 13 degrees of freedom (95 % confidence level): 22.36203
AERO

Bioscience

CESE

CHEM

Civil

CSE

CTARA

6.649782

24.69318

7.191176

5.160046

2.853387

7.480519

7.333333

EARTH

EE

IDC

IEOR

ME

Meta

SYSCON

4.660428

14.40404

4.70202

9.667112

3.677998

7.061902

2.496138

The observed X2 value for the Biosciences department is higher than the critical value for 13 degrees of
freedom & 95% confidence level. This implies that except for this department, all other departments
follow the institute trend.

Attitude towards Low price Laptops

It can be inferred from the graphs and responses that 50% of the respondents said NO to buy
low priced laptops of a new brand!

The analysis we made suggests that major junk of the respondents who said NO are brand loyal
and were possessing laptops like DELL, APPLE and HP. And the major part of the respondents
who said YES for buying low priced laptops were the owners of less preferred brands like
LENOVA, ACER and OTHERS etc

The above facts suggests that the students who said NO are:
1) Brand Loyal
2) Give more value to trust on a brand and dont want to take RISK
3) Go by the suggestions of their friends
4) Need for affiliation type
And students who said YES are:
1) Variety and Novelty seeking type
2) Uninfluenced by the actions of others

The distribution of students who said YES and NO is fairly equal in all segmentations! Meaning,
the demography (except the family income) is not the factor which is affecting their decision. But
72% of the junk of students with family income <3 LPA said YES to opt for Low price
laptops suggesting that their budget plays a very crucial part in the decision making.

Cluster Analysis
Cluster Analysis is a class of techniques used to classify objects or cases into relatively
homogenous groups called clusters. Objects in each cluster and tend to be similar to each
other and dissimilar to objects in the other clusters. Cluster analysis is also called
classification analysis or numerical taxonomy. Cluster Analysis is also used for the following:
1. Segmenting the market: For ex: Consumers may be clustered on the basis of
benefits sought from the purchase of a product. Each cluster would consist of
consumers who are relatively homogenous in terms of the benefits they seek. This
approach is called benefit segmentation.
2. Understanding Buyer Behaviors: Cluster Analysis can be used to identify
homogenous groups of buyers. Then the buying behavior of each group can be
examined separately.
3. Identifying new product opportunities: By clustering brands and products, competitive
sets within the market can be determined.
4. Selecting Test Markets:
5. Reducing Data: Clustering analysis can be used as general data reduction tool to
develop clusters or subgroups of data that are more manageable than individual
observations.

The criteria for segmentation of IITB students were:

1) Gender

2) Family income

3) Department

Conclusion
1) Depth Interviews: We got a firm understanding about the general scenario about
laptops at IITB
2) Questionnaire: Co-incidentally we could get the sample data distributed in a proper
proportionate across various segments
3) Analysis: Chi-square analysis gave us the following conclusions:
brand perception in purchase of laptops is not gender based
income plays a major in purchase of a laptop
trend in individual laptop brands for various departments follows the
institute trend (Except for APPLE)
except for Bio-sciences department, all other departments follow the
institute trend

The sample size we worked on is 117 out of more than 6000 students who live in IITB
campus. This results to just about 2% of total domain. We believe 10% sample size would
have given more efficient results and would have had lesser error. But with the limited time
we had and the scope of work we were supposed to do, we are more or less satisfied with
quality of work we reflected. Importantly, all the hypothesis we assumed (after depth
interviews) were PROVEN true through the analysis and calculations we have undertaken.

References:
Market Research-Text and Cases- Rajendra Nargundkar.
Consumer Behavior, Leon G. Schiffman & Leslie Lazar Kanuk
Marketing Research-Measurement and Methods- Tull and Hawkins.
www.dell.co.in
www.hplaptopsindia.com
www.sonyviaolaptopsindia.com
https://www.toshiba-india.com
www.lenovo.com/in/en
www.acer.co.in
www.apple.com