Determination of Mobile Phone Selection with Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Analytic Network Process

Thanks to the mobile phones that have become indispensable in everyday life in recent years, there is a rapid change in the communication sector and developments in need. The answer to the question How should an excellent mobile phone be and what features should it have in itself? will of course change over time. However, the needs of the day can be easily understood by looking at the missing aspects of the day s mobile phone operating systems. Today, it seems that many criteria (price, hardware, operating system, etc.) have been taken into consideration by decision makers depending on the fast technology that is preferred in mobile phones. Many software and hardware features formerly used only in expensive and high-end mobile phones are also available on more affordable mobile phones today. In this regard, mobile phones are gaining importance as devices providing access to the needs of the information age, even when there is no computer access. Since the mobile phone is a device that can be easily transported and uses a wide and wireless coverage phone system, it has become one of the indispensable parts of everyday life in recent years. Firms competing with rapidly changing technology produce mobile phones with various features, sizes, colors and designs that can meet the demands of consumers. In this study, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) were applied to determine the mobile phone brands preferred by the students at Selçuk University with changing and developing technology. While the FAHP method is hierarchical, i.e., it deals with the one-way relationship of units, the FANP method takes into account complex relationships such as internal dependency, external dependency, and feedback among the units. Within the scope of the study, five mobile phone brands that were sold the most in the market were handled and four main criteria (Price, Design, Technical features and Network connections) and their seventeen sub criteria that are effective in mobile phone selection, were determined. A questionnaire form was applied to 383 students educated at Selçuk University including questions based on pairwise comparisons. As a result of the evaluation of the questionnaires, mobile phone brands preferred by the students were determined by Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Analytic Network Process methods which are multi criteria decision making methods. When the main criterion weights calculated by using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process were examined, it was found that the price criterion was the most effective criterion in the mobile phone selection of the students, followed by the criteria of Design, Technical Features and Network Connections. According to the ranking results obtained from both methods, it is seen that Nokia brand mobile phones are the most preferred brand by students.