Adoption behavior of rural India for mobile telephony: A multigroup study

• We examined mobile telephony adoption among segments of rural Indian population.
• Cost of service has a negative effect on the older group’s intention to adopt (IA).
• Male’s IA is influenced by perceived ease of use, while female’s IA is influenced by perceived usefulness.
• Subscriber’s IA is influenced by mass media, while nonsubscriber’s IA is influenced by social influence.
• Nonsubscriber’s IA is negatively influenced by perceived health hazard.

Mobile telephony influences nearly all aspects of people׳s lives and is expected to grow in importance as a revenue and information source. Mobile phones are reported to have a positive and significant impact on the overall economic performance of individuals and the growth of a country. In India, however, the adoption pace of mobile telephony in rural regions is slower than that in urban areas. We examine the differences in the intention to adopt mobile telephony across different segments of the rural Indian population using the extended technology acceptance model (TAM), partial least squares regression, and multigroup analysis. Results suggest that gender, age, technology subscription, and region play a moderating role on the relationships in the extended TAM for rural India. These findings can help service providers design and develop group-specific offerings that lead to faster adoption of mobile telephony in rural India.