Drivers of diffusion of consumer products: empirical evidence from the digital audio player market

We empirically study the factors affecting the timing of adoption of a consumer technology. We account for four possible effects (epidemic, probit, stock, and order effect) in relation to the diffusion of portable digital audio players (DAPs) using an original dataset of several hundred potential adopters from eight European countries and Japan. Our findings suggest that each one of these effects, which are often incorporated into competing models of diffusion, contribute to explain the diffusion of DAPs. Thus while researches informed by a specific approach to the study of innovation diffusion could lead to important results, they also run the risk of accounting for only a part of the phenomenon. This consideration highlights the quest for a more comprehensive approach to diffusion studies.