INFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON CONSUMERS' PURCHASE DECISION TOWARDS SIM CARDS : A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN RURAL & URBAN CONSUMERS' OF WEST BENGAL

The telecommunications industry in India was liberalized in the early 1990s, paving
the way for a significant influx of investments in the industry. Over the last decade,
this industry has experienced an exponential growth in subscriber base especially in
cellular mobile service sector causing the cellular mobile service sector to dominate
in overall telecommunications industry. Liberalization has led to increasing
competition and rapid technological advancements. This dynamic competitive
environment has resulted in increased attention being paid to customer acquisition
activities. On the other hand, customers are becoming more knowledgeable due to
the heightened marketing activities prevalent in this industryand this has resulted in
increasing demands of the customers for better service and more sophisticated value
added services. The comparative study has been conducted to find out the
information from the rural and urban consumers of West Bengal. SPSS 21 is
used to analyze the results. The researcher has used multiple regression method
to conduct the survey. 220 responses from both urban and rural areas have been
collected with the help of well structured questionnaire & Convenience Sampling
Method has also been used to choose the sample. The findings of the study reveals
that income is having a significant impact on both rural & urban consumers at the
time of purchasing a SIM card.