Adoption of Short Messaging Service (SMS) in Malaysia

Short Messaging Service (SMS) being an almost instantaneous communication medium that connects people is now a phenomenon that has grown and spread around the globe at an amazing speed. Given the current trend of SMS usage and its potential growth, this paper provides an insight into SMS adoption. The study attempts to delineate the demographics and usage profile of SMS users in Malaysia, as well as explaining the factors influencing SMS adoption in Malaysia by using a modified version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which was originally introduced by Davis (1989). The study presents the demographic and usage profile in terms of gender, age, occupation, monthly personal income, extent of SMS usage and so forth of 489 SMS users from four institutions of education in the Klang Valley and Selangor. The present research uses and validates the scales for variables developed by earlier studies, namely perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, and perceived fees, which are hypothesized to be fundamental determinants of behavioural intention. The scale items for the said variables were tested for reliability, correlation and regression. The application of correlation analysis reveals a significant relationship among the independent variables, namely, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and perceived ease of use with the dependent variable that is behavioural intention. With regards to the level of importance derived from regression analysis, usefulness ranks the highest, followed by ease of use and enjoyment in explaining SMS adoption in Malaysia. Perceived fees do not seem to have a significant relationship with behavioural intention. Some implications, limitations and recommendations for future research are also discussed.