Quality Investment and Pricing Strategies of App Developers

doi:10.12005/orms.2020.0090

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, the App developers' quality investment and pricing decision models are built in a two-layer App supply chain which consists of one download platform and two mobile application developers with price competition and quality competition. This paper gives four different scenarios: developers none-cooperating scenario, developers cooperating scenario, chain cooperating scenario and mixed competition scenario. Firstly, the equilibrium strategies of four scenarios are analyzed by solving the profit function. Then, the influences of price competition degree and quality competition degree on equilibrium strategies are compared and analyzed. This paper shows that the optimal quality investment and the optimal App price of high ability developer are higher than those of low ability developer. Second, the influences of price competition and quality competition on none-cooperation scenarios are much more significant than cooperation scenarios. Besides, the total profit of App supply chain is related to the way of cooperation, and the total profit of App supply chain in the scenario of chain cooperating are the highest.

Key words: App supply chain, quality investment, pricing, price competition, quality competition

摘要： 本文考虑了由两个App开发者和一个下载平台商所构成的二级App供应链,在开发者间存在价格竞争和质量竞争的情况下,区分开发者竞争、开发者合作、供应链集中决策以及混合竞争四种不同的情景,建立了开发者质量投资和定价决策模型,分析了四种情景下开发者的均衡策略,并通过数值仿真进一步探讨了价格竞争程度和质量竞争程度对不同情境下均衡结果的影响。研究表明,高能力开发者的最优质量投资水平以及最优App价格均高于低能力开发者;价格竞争程度和质量竞争程度对非合作情形下的最优策略影响显著,对合作情形下的最优策略影响不显著;此外,App供应链总利润的高低取决于开发者与平台商之间合作的紧密程度。

关键词: App供应链, 质量投资, 定价, 价格竞争, 质量竞争

CLC Number:

F274

ZHANG Cui-hua, XU Zhan-feng. Quality Investment and Pricing Strategies of App Developers[J]. Operations Research and Management Science, 2020, 29(4): 54-61.

张翠华, 许占峰. App开发者质量投资和定价策略研究[J]. 运筹与管理, 2020, 29(4): 54-61.

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