The recent years have seen an exponential rise in the mobile application space. Organizations strive to be present in this space for interacting with the customer. In this light, it is important to study the current usage of mobile applications and factors which affect their adoption across age groups. This research is a qualitative study, which investigates the pattern of usage, the user friendliness, the liked and disliked features of mobile apps and the beliefs associated with them. Mobile applications being a fairly recent technological advancement, it has been important to study their adoption in the light of the diffusion of innovation and investigate the effect of social influence on decisions to use mobile apps. The findings of this study are based on a total of 29 responses (19 through semi-structured interviews and 10 through focus group discussion) in National Capital Region of India (NCR). The responses were analyzed using content analysis. This study reveals differences in patterns of usage and beliefs among Gen X and Gen Y users. It was found that Gen Y users used mobile apps much more extensively than Gen X users. Though both categories of users believed that usage of mobile apps made life easier, Gen X users had negative beliefs about mobile apps. The findings also reveal the presence of the trait of innovativeness and uniqueness among Gen Y users, which leads to adoption of mobile applications.

Qualitative research, mobile applications, factors for adoption, Gen X, Gen Y, social influence, content analysis, innovativeness, uniqueness, competitiveness