ADOPTION OF MOBILE APPLICATIONS IN EAST MALAYSIA BY GENERATION Y

Abstract

The growth of Internet and Mobile Commerce have become more and more established and produced many opportunities as competitive advantages and an enhanced platform for create a new business to develop the businesses market. The Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) and Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) are the parts of mobile applications which the information and communication has risen, and principals that increase intensively. The coverage of M-Commerce has occupied the consumers weighted down with the several transactions and information consequently, it carries improbability for current and existing internet users including the old-style of business in adopting to M-Commerce. Generation Y (Gen Y) is the main sample population of this study has been selected which recognised as the innovator or pioneer that spent their whole lives in the digitalised environment and information technology for daily usage in their entire life and work. In this research, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been chosen as fundamental theory by the researcher to support and examine the relationship between the independent variables (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) towards the adoption of mobile applications by Gen Y. Questionnaire has been employed as a data collection method which will be circulated within East Malaysia and this research is based on a quantitative correlation study. Therefore, this research is focusing on determining the adoption of mobile applications within East Malaysia by Generation Y and the outcomes will support the existing or new business to understand and enhance the M-Commerce for potential mobile users’ especially for young generation. As well, the result of this research has concluded that both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness has influenced most of the Generation Y users in East Malaysia to adopt in mobile applications. Furthermore, the Gen Y users in East Malaysia are more desired to download various types of mobile application when it provided as free instead of paid mobile application therefore, the cost of mobile application especially free apps played a significant positive relationship towards adoption of mobile applications.