Mass prestige value and competition between American versus Asian laptop brands in an emerging market—Theory and evidence

In recent years, competition between brands have been linked to mass prestige associated with the brands. Mass Prestige (Masstige) is very important to study, and yet it is a relatively less investigated construct in the literature. This study is an attempt to contribute to the literature grounded in masstige theoretical approach by examining the prestige associated with the four best-selling laptop brands: 1) two American brands (HP, Dell); and 2) two Asian brands (Lenovo and Acer). We analyzed the competition between these brands in the second fastest growing emerging market, India. In order to measure masstige value, we used the Masstige Mean scale (Paul, 2015). The results show that American brands have the potential to be seen as prestige brands while Asian brands are trailing behind in masstige value and competition. Finally, but not less important, this paper discusses the potential reasons for different masstige value of four laptop brands.