Abstract:

This paper examines the magnitude and key drivers behind purchase intent or adoption over-estimation across three different technology product categories. Overestimation (as a behavioral projection of slightly better known problems such as approval response bias) is a problem beginning to be admitted to in Brazil, as well as in Latin America, yet it remains rarely unaddressed. As a result, market forecasts for technology products present extreme variability and instability, and planning and marketing departments usually find their survey data-based projections unsupported by actual performance. Using data from different projects related to mobile telephone acquisition/replacement and computers, the authors explore how systematic and large over-estimation is as a problem and in what ways measures can help or lead astray when conducting market sizing studies.