# Introduction he changes in consumer's demands and preferences are important for development of mobile phones and technologies. World's modern history has mobile phone devices as fastest household adoption among all developments. (Comer and Wikle, 2008). There are many factors which influence customer's purchase decision so many studies have conducted to identify them and make companies better than their competitors. "Individuals and household buy goods and services for personal consumption and this buying behavior of individuals and households is called consumer buying behavior." (Kotler, Armstrong, 2001). Due to dynamic changes in consumers' needs and preferences, the development of mobile phones and technologies has been an extended history of innovation and advancements cropped up throughout the world. # Studying of consumer behavior includes how people Author: Central China Normal University, Wuhan P.R China. e-mail: sarah.murtazach@gmail.com buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. Various factors such as age, income, education level and preferences are different for every consumer around the world and these factors may affect the way they avail of goods and services. Consumer behavior impacts on how products and services presented to different consumer markets and many factors like cultural, social, personal, and psychological influence consumer behavior (kotler and Armstrong, 2001). The factors affecting how customers make decisions are extremely complex. Buyer behavior is deeply embedded in psychology and to make things more interesting dashes of sociology thrown. It's impossible to have simple rules to explain how decision of buying are made because every person in the world is different. There are many people who analyze customer activity for many years and gave us useful "guidelines" how people make decision either to buy or not. For satisfying needs, customers make purchases and some are basic needs which must be filled by everyone but others are not necessary for basic survival and they vary person to person. We can classify them not as necessity but wants and desires. Pakistan is a developing Muslim country so we are up to interesting results related to country of origin effects on mobile buying behavior. People consider from where the products come and where they manufacture for evaluating the quality of the products. (Parkvithee & Miranda, 2012). Dissimilar perception among consumers may lead to different evaluations about products when they want to choose due to different cultures and histories. Country of origin plays an important role in competitive markets and consumer behavior. Many parameters that have an effect on country of origin which includes Political system, culture and the country's economy (Teo, Mohamad, & Ramayah, 2011) II. # Literature Review The home country with which that a manufacturer's product or brand is linked with is called country of origin (Saeed, 1994). IBM is a USA's Brand and SONY is a Japanese brand. Manufacturing or assembling of the product conducts in any country is defined as country of origin of that product (Ahmed, 2004). The product's last manufacturing or assembling point is known as country of manufacture (COM) (Saeed, 1994) of manufacture and location of assembly are not different and they have no difference for customer. Customers' mental representation for one specific country is known as country of origin effect (Roth and Romeo, 1992). Stereotypes and preferences for products of another country is called country's stereotype (Johansson and Thorelli, 1985). IBM and Sony, for instance, infer US and Japanese origins, respectively (Samiee, 1994). Bilkey and Nes (1982), Cattin et al., (1982), Han and Terpstra (1988), Lee and Schaninger (1996), Papadopoulos (1993) and White (1979), characterize the product's country of origin as "the country of manufacturer or assembly". "Individual and households for personal consumption buy firms product are called consumers" (Kotler, 2004). It often used to relate two different kinds of consuming entities: the personal consumers and the organizational consumers. "The activities these consumers undertake when obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products and a service is known as consumer behavior". Consumer behavior includes studying how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. Consumers will pass through the process through recognition, search information, evaluation, purchase, and feedback when a consumer wanted to make the purchase decision, (Blackwell, Miniard, and Engel, 2006). There is extensive literature on this issue from the 1980s, which shows the reasonable confirmation of country of origin impact on consumer's purchase intention and evaluation. Few authors presumed that COO can be an indicator for customer's thoughts and inclination pattern. Concentrates on demonstrate that as an extrinsic cue, country of origin helps people in judging. This happens on the grounds that assessing extrinsic cues is more advantageous than intrinsic cues, and the essential thing that ought to be considered is that the country of origin impact is automatic on individuals' assessment (Dagger and Raciti, 2011). COO can have a positive or negative effect on customer's intention, as indicated by each impact that the country of origin has on the perception of the buyers. Nagashima (1970) defines country image -"it refers to economic, social, technological and political part of each country." various options are available to consumers but with a very limited knowledge to evaluate each option due to emergence of multinationals. For decision making, consumer relies on their previous experience with particular country and product. Distinction has to be made between beliefs based on information about products from a particular country and beliefs about country itself when studying about country of origin Verlegh (2001) defined Geographic and human component as components of country image. Climate and landscape are included in Geography and skill, competence and creativity level of people of country of origin of product are. The term of "Ethnocentrism" originated by Shimp and Sharma in 1987. According to Dinnie(2003) "From the perspective of ethnocentric consumers, purchasing imported products is wrong because, in their minds, it hurts domestic economy and causes loss of jobs." Memories and knowledge's that are in people's minds related to a product Brucks (1985).There is two classifications of product knowledge: 1) Subjective knowledge 2) Objective knowledge The set of experiences and the degree of familiarity a Consumer has with the product is known as Subjective knowledge. A knowledge in which through various advertisements, public and opinion leaders in the society consumer knows about product's quality, feature and performance level is known as objective knowledge. Subjective knowledge has greater effect and consumers go for objective knowledge if they have less subjective knowledge for product evaluation. Consumer's engagement in information search, information processing and to seek variety, quality and specialty are called consumer involvement. Information search behavior is an important indicator of consumer buying behavior and product knowledge plays an important role in information search. Age, gender, income, education level are called demographic factors. Consumer evaluation process based upon these factors. Young consumers are more involved in Buying process than old consumers and they have tendency to balance between their actual and ideal selves (Josiassen, 2009). # III. # Research Methodology The data collected from adult's mobile consumers of Pakistan. As it is an Exploratory study in Pakistani settings so initially student sample would be tested and middle aged group of Pakistani population are included being as mobile users. The unit of analysis of this study would be Pakistani mobile consumers. The data from Pakistani mobile consumers from different big cities like Multan, Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi were selected. The reason behind choosing big cities of Pakistan is because in big cities most of people use mobile phones for convenience purpose and it's a trend to buy good mobile phone. The youth is eager to consume and are conscious of their experience. 50 questionnaires per city were allotted to collect data regarding country of origin. The data was collected from students, businessmen, uneducated; job seekers etc Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and Multan were the city in which majority of the population use mobile phones. There is huge population in Karachi and Lahore. IV. # Results & Discussions The actual number of questionnaire were 200 but I received response from 175(89%) mobile users. According to descriptive statistics the data was collected from male and females. Total number of males was 109 (61.2%) and females were 66 (37.1%) and among those respondents 46(25.8%) were between 20-30, 75(42.1%) of them fall in the category of 30-40. 35(19.7) fall in the category of 40-50 and least number of respondents 19(10.7%) were among 50-60 years old category. These respondents gave response voluntarily and only 5(2.8%) respondents were uneducated. High school and bachelor degree holder were 27(15.2%) and 61 (34.3%) respectively .Highest number of respondents were master degree holder or still doing their master's degree or above education like PhD. They were 82 (46.1%) respondents. The income level of respondents for mobile users in Pakistan is divided into five categories. The respondents who have income level between 2000-5000 rupees were 5(2.8%) and they were students. 31 (17.4%) respondents were having income level 6000-10,000. 59(33.1%) respondents were having income in the category of 11000-15000 rupees and they were highest number of respondents in comparison of all income categories. The second highest number of respondents fall in the category of 16000-25000 rupees with the number of 57(32.0%) respondents. Last category of income of respondents is 40,000 + and the number of respondents were 23 (12.9%). These results of descriptive analysis showed many respondents have better understanding of questionnaire and they properly filled questionnaires. The results of correlation shows in Pakistan the income of the people and preference for countries for buying mobile phones have negative correlation. As the income increases people don't care about country of origin of mobile. We tested at 0.01 level of significance and sample size was 175. Pearson correlation value was (r= -.456, 0.01>.000). Price of the mobile phones have no correlation with country of origin of mobile phones in Pakistan (r=-.046, 0.01<0.543) Preference to buy Pakistani mobile phones (ethnocentrism) has negative correlation with country of origin of foreign brand mobile phones. Pakistani people like to buy home country's mobile phone they don't give preference to foreign brands and don't even look at country of origin of mobiles(r=-.695, 0.01>.000). The gender (male or female) have no correlation with country of origin of mobile phones. (r=.046, 0.01<.543). The correlation between education level and country of origin of mobile phones is negative at the level of significance (0.01) Pakistani people with the increase of level of education become least concerned with country of origin of mobile phones while buying mobile phones(r = -.411, 0.01>.000) Pakistani people like to buy technological advanced mobile phones so they see which country is advanced in manufacturing of advanced smart phones. (r =.535, 0.01>.000) Pakistani consumer's value new technology features as the most important factor while buying mobile phones (Saif, 2012). Sales and services and quality of mobile phones has no correlation with country of origin of mobile phones and has least importance for buying mobile phones in the eye of Pakistani people. The past experience of mobile phones has correlation with country of origin of Mobile phones while purchasing a new mobile past experience of Pakistani consumers matter. V. # Findings The aim of this study was to know the effect of country of origin on mobile buying behavior of consumers in Pakistan. There are lot of models in the literature to find the relationship between country of origin and knowledge of product. The data was collected from Pakistan. The 175 respondents gave response and they all have mobile phones. The data was collected through a questionnaire. The descriptive statistics, ANOVA and correlation analysis were applied on respondents response. The major cities of Pakistan Karachi, Lahore, Multan, and Islamabad have awareness of mobile phones and the buying behavior in these cities shows the true representation about mobile phones usage. Male respondents were more than female respondents and respondent's highest Education level was masters & above. The mostly respondent had income level between 11000-15000 rupees and age of mostly respondent was between 30-40 years. The mostly respondent have mobile phones and they have mobile phones of huawei, Iphone, Q mobile, Samsung galaxy etc. Respondents were aware of country of origin of their mobile phones and they don't care about Price of the mobile phones while buying. When the income level of Pakistani consumers increases they don't care from which country the mobile phone is. They consider the "Technological innovation" of the countries in mobile phones overall and then make purchase decision. The Brand image has positive relationship with people's purchase decision and Pakistani consumer moderately considers this factor while purchasing mobile phones. # VI. # Implications The study provides insightful findings for Multinational and national companies operating in Pakistan that country of origin image in the mind of the customers to improve. When the image of the country is positive they should emphasize on "made in label" and mention on the product about its origin but when the image of the country is negative marketers should not attach country's name with product i.e. Mobile phones. Country of origin image can be helpful for preference purpose but it cannot create conviction for purchase and positive image of country of origin is not a source of Competitive advantage. Chinese mobile companies can introduce xiaomi after the success of huawei in Pakistan. Pakistani consumers like to buy Chinese mobile phones because of the technological innovation. # VII. # Suggestions a) Suggestions to Manufacturers Mobile phone marketers need to keep abreast of technological changes as China is taking market share from USA in Pakistan. Each mobile phone manufacturer should wisely re-think its strategy and they should first examine the evaluation of consumers in the countries to the product's country-of-origin image when manufacturing, marketing and distributing these devices and focus on brand personality, brand positioning, product design and differentiation. Pakistani people are more concerned about newer technology and will be able to shift from one mobile phone to another if it uses better technology. Mobile phone companies should bring out periodic survey to help in recognizing these new technology features and decide which ones to add to its product. Moreover, by defining which combination of these features match the current developments and consumer needs would be cost effective to the mobile phone companies. According to this study, consumer product knowledge is an important factor in influencing their purchase behavior. Therefore, manufacturers must first understand the consumer's attitude in dealing with relevant product information, to increase marketing strategy effect. Manufacturers of different mobile brands are improving on the durability and quality of the brand; they should also highlight the major quality component of their mobile phones rather than highlighting the country of origin. It is recommended that companies concentrate more on developing quality and affordable mobile phones and spend more time on enhancing their products to offer it at lower prices which can be done by employing cost reduction measures because now a day's more and more competitive mobile companies are entering the market. So, Mobile manufacturers who have some competitive advantage will get the highest profit in Pakistan as compared to those who just focus on their positive country's image. # b) Future research suggestions This study only performs research based on effect of country of origin on mobile phones. Future research can be chosen in different items for comparing differences of other products based on their country of origin. Moreover, the country-of-origin in this study only chooses Korea, Mainland China, and the USA. For future research, it can include other countries or measure other countries directly for comparing differences of other countries. Besides, it is advisable to ![](image-2.png "T") 1VariablesRSig.Income-.456.000Price-.0460.543Ethnocentric-.695.000Gender.046.543Education-.411.000Mobile company.365.000Country image.050.000Technology.535.000Sales & services.082.283Quality of mobile phones.035.650Previous experience & knowledge of mobile phone.135.000 © 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US) * Country-of-origin and brand effects on consumers' evaluations of cruise lines ZUAhmed JPJohnson CPLing TWFang AKHui 10.1108/02651330210430703 International Marketing Review 19 3 2002 * Country-of-origin effects on product evaluations WJBilkey ENes 1982 * Consumer behavior, 10th edn RDBlackwell Miniard JFEngel 2006 Thomson South-Western; Boston * worldwide diffusion of the cellular telephone TAComer Wikle The Professional Geographer 2008. 1995-2005 60 * Matching consumers' country and product Image perceptions: an Australian perspective TSDagger MMRaciti 10.1108/07363761111127626 Journal of Consumer Marketing 28 3 2011 * Are young consumers still susceptible to the country of origin effects AJosiassen 10.1108/02651330810887477 International Marketing Review 4 2 423440 2009 Journal of Business systems * A comparison of Japanese and US attitudes toward foreign products PKotler Journal of Marketing 2004. 1970 Wiley Nagashima, A Ten deadly marketing sins: signs and solutions * The interaction effect of country-of-origin, brand equity and purchase involvement on consumer purchase intentions of clothing labels NParkvithee MJMiranda 10.1108/13555851211192678 Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 24 1 2012 * Testing the dimensionality of Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (CETSCALE) among a young Malaysian consumer Market segment PCTeo OMohamad TRamayah African Journal of Business Management 5 7 2011