Marketing Research Proposal for Xiaomi Smartphones in UK

Abstract:
This main purpose of this marketing research proposal is to examine the market potential for the Xiaomi
smartphone in UK market place. So, for this purpose, several research objectives are designed to gather
and analyze the different sort of data. It includes the usage of smartphone in the UK, information of the
smartphone users buying behavior and competitors positioning in UK market place. The last objective is
to define the target market for Xiaomi smartphone in UK. To accomplish these objectives, first primary
research will be conducted. It includes both internal and external research. Then qualitative research will
be conducted based on focus groups. Lastly, the quantitative research will be conducted through online
administered questionnaires. Data will further will analyzed through statistical software’s using various
statistics methods. This research will be completed in 16 weeks and finally presented in the form of
report.

Background of the problem

The smartphone industry is recognized as one of the most rapidly growing and intensively competitive
industry globally as well as in the UK market economy during past two decades. Cellular companies are
involved in continual pursuit to develop the innovative smartphone models with unique features with an
intention to retain customer loyalty and increase their sales.
Xiaomi is one of the fastest growing tech company in the world. As for 2019, the top 6 smartphone
brands according to their market share were Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi in 6 position. As for the UK
market is concerned. Statistics showed that in 2019, 79% of UK adults (18+) own a smartphone.
Xiaomi controls the 7 percent of the Chinese’s marketing considering the fact that this is the largest
smartphone market in the world. Xiaomi is a high-tech company founded in china and globally known for
its relatively inexpensive laptops and smartphones. Xiaomi is going to launch its new Mi 8 Pro in the UK
market.

Research Problem and Objectives

The main research problem for Xiaomi is the examination of the brand’s potential in UK smartphone
industry. For this purpose, some research objectives have been formulated.
1. To collect the data regarding the usage of smartphones in the UK. It may include the ownership
information of the smartphone, market size and growth rate of different brands sold in UK round
the year, distribution and dynamics of smartphones sales and purchase and other statics like it.
2. To explore and analyze the information regarding purchase behavior of UK smartphone users. It
will include the information about the most popular features and appliances of smartphone among
the users of different age groups, and their preferences and liking regarding the OS of the
smartphone along with its model and brand.
3. To analyze the information about the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors. It will include
the key positioning of the competitors in the market place along with the collection and analysis
of other strengths and weakness information of competitors.
4. To identify the target segments of Xiaomi in the UK smartphone industry. The data that will be
received from the above first two objectives along with conducting partial research on the
behavior of potential customers of Xiaomi towards its smartphone will assist to identify the target
segment in UK smart phone industry.
Desk research and Primary research
For this research proposal, we are required to conduct a primary research. But before moving to
primary research, we will conduct some secondary research as well. It will help us to collect a
large amount of data regarding smartphone market and give a general idea about the perception of
customers towards different smartphone brands. So, we collect relevant information on Xiaomi
brand and examine the different factors that may impact the purchasing decision of the
smartphone buyers in UK. We will also collect some relevant information of Xiaomi competitors
to gain a better understanding of smartphone market in UK. Our goal is to find the answers of our
research question by analyzing the internal and external research factors in personal and business
life.

Procedure:
Initially, the internal research will unveil the previous marketing research records that are
conducted by Xiaomi, it will help to get an insight on the customers’ attitude towards Xiaomi brand and
about its marketing positioning. Along with it, it will also help to understand the perception of
consumers’ behavior towards brands is either based on after-sale service or based on the good quality of
the product. Additionally, the financial and accounting internal records of Xiaomi can provide a detailed
analysis of the sales volume of Xiaomi smartphone in other markets during the past few years. The
product reviews and previous marketing strategies of Xiaomi also helps to determine the strengths and
weaknesses of the Xiaomi smartphone company.
As for as the external research is concerned, the statistical record National Statistics bureau of
UK will help us to discover the parameter and characteristics of UK population. It may include
demographics of the UK population such as, age, gender, race, their income level and occupation etc.
(Bradley, 2010).,
Additionally, we will also gather data from competitor’s annual reports in UK market. The
research findings of the other agencies of UK such as Mintel and Euromonitor can also be beneficial to
figure out the market opportunities for Xiaomi smartphone in UK marketplace.
The data collected from all above mentioned ways will help in planning and implementing the
qualitative research in an effective manner.

Qualitative Research
On the basis of information gather during our desk research, in qualitative research, we will focus
on to get a better and in-depth understanding of the customers’ attitude towards smartphones, and interest
of consumers towards different brands of the UK. Then after analyzing the results of this qualitative
research, we will develop the quantitative research model. We will select the focus group qualitative
technique for this research.

Justification of choosing the focus groups

There are two main justifications to choose the focus group technique for this research. One
important benefit of choosing the focus group is the collection of diverse set of views and experiences of
the participants regarding smartphones and second main benefit is getting new ideas from participant’s
ease of expressing their views. Focus group is quite informal technique than the other quantitate
techniques. As other techniques like interviews and moderator guided discussion process are quite formal
way of data collection that didn’t allow the participants to express their opinions in a realistic way.

Population and sampling

WE will divide the focus group in 5 segments according to their age by considering their wants and needs
as per their age group. Along with considering their similar behavioral and psychographic characteristics.
Theses age segregation can be like this

16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+

From each age group, we will further choose 7 participants through quota sampling by considering the
following criteria.

 Both genders will be included

 Different educational levels
 Different occupations and social status will be chosen
After completing this process, interview sessions will be conducted to acquire in-depth and precise
information from those participants. By considering the budget limitation, maximum 5 in-depth
interviews will try to be conducted.
The process of this focus group discussion will be conducted in a special venue equip with all
necessary recording devices. In this discussion stage, the moderator will try to get information on the
below mentioned vital topics.

 Their purpose of purchasing a smartphone

 Their popular activities while using smartphones
 Their favorite channels to purchase the smartphone
 Their attitude towards different brands
 Their perception about Xiaomi brand
During this focus group interview, video recording will also be done. So that along with the notes of the
moderator, we can also analysis the non-verbal part of the participants as well like their facial expressions
and body language etc. It will help us to get the deep understanding of our objective. After assembling
data of this focus group in depth interview. Our next goal is to codify this data and get a useful
information. It helps to get a particular theme that we can easily display in the form of charts.
Consequently, we can draw conclusions and provide explanations of these patterns.

Quantitative Research
After obtaining relevant information from focus groups, we will develop online questionnaires. The
purpose behind generating the online questionnaire is to get a widespread idea of the attitude of target
market.

Justification of using online questionnaires

There are three main benefits of using the online questionnaire rather than using the postal or telephonic
questionnaires. Firstly, it is cost efficient and speedy. It reduces the administrative and data entry cost and
eliminate the cost of paper and postage. Additionally, it enhances the reach to the target respondents at
lower cost and along with it, the delivery and collection of responses can be done in a quiet time efficient
manner. Secondly, online questionnaire provides more accurate data and data entry is done automatically
that eliminate the human data entry error. It helps the researcher to get an up-to-minute counts of sample
size that is quite time consuming and difficult in case of postal and telephonic questionnaire. Lastly,
online questionnaires also help to create and respond quite flexible and personalized questioning. The
feature on automatic skipping of filter questions allows the respondents to answer the relevant section that
is related to their previous answer. Likewise, it also helps to notify the respondents about unanswered
questions. That automatically mitigate the nonresponse issue as these benefits can’t be gained through
postal questionnaires.

Population and Sampling

The target audience for this quantitative research is above 11 years old residents of UK. So, we can
formulate sampling frame by obtaining data from latest UK census statistics (National Statistics, 2019).
We will use quota sampling for data collection. Our main purpose of using data sampling technique is to
obtain proportional representation of the UK various age groups population in our sample (Zikmund
and Babin, 2010). Additionally, it’s a quite cost efficient and realistic technique od data collection.
We are planning to distribute around 4000 online questionnaires by considering the budget
appropriate for it. As, the response rate of online email survey is usually considered around 20%. So
we are expecting around 800 completed questionnaires from this survey.
The questionnaire will probe to get the response on the following issues

 To know the Key motives of purchasing a smartphone

 To know the appealing characteristics of the smartphone
 The intention or attitude of purchasing towards the different brands of smartphone.
In this questionnaire, both open and close ended questions will be administered to nominal, ordinal,
interval and ratio measurements. Specifically, main focus will be based on the interval and ration
measurement to get the deeper statistical analysis. The maximum duration of the question will be 10
minutes. To ensure the face validity, few pilot questionnaires will also be conducted. The
questionnaires will be send through email with the Embedded URL of the questionnaires. The click
on the URL will lead them towards the online questionnaire site. To enhance the participation of the
respondent, we will motivate them by offering some incentives by considering our budget.
SPSS or ANOVA statistical software’s will be used to analyze the collected data. Statistical
techniques such as, regression, correlation, factor analysis, cluster analysis and descriptive statistics
will be used to get results for findings and draw conclusion from those findings. Regression and
correlation analysis will be used to study the relationship between Xiaomi smartphone sale
(dependent variable) and smartphone features (independent variable). To confirm the dimensionality
of existing scales, Exploratory factor analysis will be used. The factor analysis to the smartphone
scale in this research will help to unveil the different dimensions and importance of the smartphone
features. Consequently, in depth analysis of the smartphone users and shoppers will help to improve
the effectiveness of the marketing-mix of Xiaomi smartphone company.
Ethical Issues
Considering the sensitivity of the personal information. It will be ensuring to respondents that the
data collected will not be shared to any other irrelevant authority. Along with it, participants reserve
the right to pull out at any stage as this participation is purely voluntary and no offensive questions
will be asked. All information will remain confidential.

Timeline
A timeline is designed to give an idea of the completion of the objectives. It will show the week
numbers according to the activity.
Activity week
Desk research 1- 4
Qualitative fieldwork 4-7
Qualitative/desk research available 8
Quantitative questionnaire development 9
Pilot 10
Quantitative stage (n=4000) 11-13
Data preparation 13-14
Produce tables 15
Presentation 16
Final report 17

Budget
A tentative budget is also proposed based on the techniques used during qualitative and quantitative
research. A total budget of £40,000 is proposed. However, the fee and date of completion may
subject to change as per our assumption by considering some unavoidable factors.
Methods of research Description Fee

Qualitative research 10 Focus Group discussions of £20,000

7 interviewees
£2000 per group
Qualitative research Maximum 4 In depth £3,000
interviews
£600 per individual
Quantitative research Online questionnaire delivered £17,000
to 4,000 users of the Internet
£4 per questionnaire emailed
Total £40,000

References
Bradley, N. 2010. Marketing Research: Tools and Techniques, England, Oxford University Press.
Xiaomi, 2018. About Xiaomi boosts global presence with UK entery [Online]. Available
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/devices/news-devices/xiaomi-boosts-global-presence-with-uk-entry/
[Accessed 2/03/2020].

Zikmund, W. G. & Babin, B. J. 2010. Exploring Market Research, China, Cengage Learning

Appendices
Appendices 1

Forecast of smartphone users’ numbers in the United Kingdom from 2015 to 2022

Appendices 2
National Statistics report on the usage of smartphone according to age in UK.

Source: https://www.finder.com/uk/mobile-internet-statistics