Referrals · Observational diffusion study using a large mobile-carrier dataset, tight-community identification, and instrumental variables to address correlation between unobserved subscriber heterogeneity and friends' adoption; the authors also report policy ex
Peer Influence in the Diffusion of iPhone 3G over a Large Social Network
MIS Quarterly · 2014
Summary
A subscriber's adoption propensity increased with the percentage of friends who had already adopted. The authors estimate that peer influence accounted for 14% of iPhone 3Gs sold by the carrier during the 11-month period; their policy experiments suggest traditional seeding for viral marketing would have yielded little benefit at this effect level.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Use it as a product, platform or behavior mechanism reference rather than a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.
Reported result
What the study found
A subscriber's adoption propensity increased with the percentage of friends who had already adopted. The authors estimate that peer influence accounted for 14% of iPhone 3Gs sold by the carrier during the 11-month period; their policy experiments suggest traditional seeding for viral marketing would have yielded little benefit at this effect level.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How much does peer influence affect iPhone 3G adoption in a large social network, and would seeding the product produce useful viral-marketing benefits?
Design
Observational diffusion study using a large mobile-carrier dataset, tight-community identification, and instrumental variables to address correlation between unobserved subscriber heterogeneity and friends' adoption; the authors also report policy experiments.
Sample and setting
Communities sampled from a large dataset supplied by a major European mobile carrier in one country, tracking iPhone 3G diffusion for 11 months; controls include social clustering, gender, prior mobile-Internet-plan adoption, advanced-handset ownership, and regional mobility.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Not stated on the fetched publisher article page/abstract.
Research sources
The publisher abstract says the study uses instrumental variables on communities from a major European mobile carrier's dataset, finds adoption rises with friends' adoption, estimates 14% of carrier sales were due to peer influence over 11 months, and reports policy experiments on seeding. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; profile summarizes the accessible record and does not claim independent review of inaccessible full text.