ИСТИНА

At the origins of this research lay two working hypotheses, which we wanted to put to a test. Hypothesis 1 was that there should be a relation between the perceived quality of smartphone brands in various geographic markets and the pricing policies of their vendors in these markets. Hypothesis 2 was that the degree of this relation should be able to tell us about their competitive position in these markets. Furthermore, if these both hypotheses proved correct, our objective was to analyze the existing ‘perceived quality – price’ relation for several selected smartphone brands and assess their competitive positions. To keep our research focused, we chose to analyze the performance of just four leading smartphone brands (Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and HTC) in three key markets (US, Russia, and China).