A visual context-based market analysis of mobile application services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose the use of a user-centric service map to facilitate the visual exploration and monitoring of user context information for proactive market analysis. Design/methodology/approach The paper supports a context-based market analysis by developing a user-centric service map which comprehensively visualizes a variety of contexts, users, and services. Empirical data were gathered from service descriptions and reviews of 100 mobile application services in the Apple App Store’s lifestyle and healthcare and fitness categories. Findings The user-centric service map supports the analysis of the context information from using various mobile app services, and can therefore be effectively applied for market-segment analysis and user-value analysis. Practical implications The user-centric service map involves implications in terms of multi-disciplinary proactive market orientation and data-driven strategy development, allowing firms to respond to changing market conditions in the mobile business promptly and even preemptively. Originality/value The initiative uncovering of latent needs through examining context of use have been an important focus of prior work, but little attempt has been presented in the way of frameworks for converting abundant context data into strategic information. The paper provides new methods and procedures to establish and interpret service maps using flexible visual features.