Do social groups enhance the spread of smartphones? An empirical analysis of rural households in Thailand and Vietnam
Michael Hübler, Dorothee Bühler · Innovation and Development · 2026
This study investigates the drivers of ICT (information and communication technology) ownership, especially the role of social groups as an important scarcely researched aspect. For this purpose, it introduces an innovative model to analyze the convergence of ICT use at the micro level. ICT, measured as the number of smartphones within a household, depends upon socio-economic characteristics, such as income, education, technologies and occupation. In this new specification, smartphone ownership and the socio-economic characteristics are defined in relative terms between household pairs. Indicators for jointly belonging to a social group define a new explanatory variable type. This model is applied to survey and geographic data on rural households in Thailand and Vietnam. Heckman-type regressions show that better education and existing technologies unequivocally enhance convergence of smartphone ownership among households, whereas the effect of social groups depends on the specific group. Self-employment or employment outside agriculture enhance convergence, whereas farming or employment in agriculture lead to divergence. Consequently, relying on technology diffusion via social networks is not sufficient to achieve a more equal spread of ICT, particularly, smartphones.