The Effect of Privacy Concerns on Smartphone App Purchase in Malaysia: Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

The rise of m-commerce has brought the intention to the privacy concerns among mobile users, and studies showed that it is an important factor that affects attitude and intention to purchase smartphone apps. The objective of this paper is to investigate the issue of privacy concerns on the attitude and purchasing intention among Malaysian smartphone users. This paper employed the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to investigate the role of privacy concerns in influencing the decision making process. The paper provides significant insights on the issue of privacy concerns in the usage of smartphones which can help developers such as Google and Apple to improve their apps stores to provide better protection for users’ privacy and security in Malaysia.