One of the most important functions during the launch of a new product is to forecast the demand for that product, as it guides many other critical decisions faced by the company. Companies can schedule their production activities once they have an idea about the demand in the coming months or years. At a high level, Bass Diffusion Model is used to determine the shape of the curve representing the cumulative adoption of the new product. Bass describes the individuals who decide to adopt an innovation independently of the actions of others as ''innovators''. Those who respond to the influences of the social system and obtain information about a new product from those who have already adopted the product are termed as ''imitators''.
===Proxies for analysis===
The use of the model has been made by using the historical sales data of ''proxy'Some ' products to forecast sales for OLED display mobile phones with an assumption that OLED display mobile phones would mimic the diffusion patterns of the terms proxies. Hence it was important to select the proxies carefully. We used in the model arefollwong for this farecast:'''<br>* iPhone - since this was the latest revolution in mobile phone devices and consumers would show a similar adoption behavior for a new mobile phone technology even though it comes at a price premium* LCD/Plasma TVs & Monitors - consumers spent more money to purchase screens with superior quality by significantly increasing their budget** LCD and Plasma TVs and LCD monitors were treated as a single analogous product(by ascribing different weights to these) for the forecast
[[Image:Bass Terms.jpg|center|600px]]
===Forecasting OLED display phone sales using Analogous Products===
'''Three key parameters used in the Bass Diffusion Model are:'''<br>
[[Image:Bass-Parameters.jpg|center|600px]] '''Some of the formulas used are:'''<BR> [[Image:Bass-Formulas.jpg|center|600px]] '''Bass Model Equations:''' [[Image:Bass Equations.jpg|center|600px]] '''Adoption curve for new product are generally called S-curves because of their shape.''' ===Predicting OLED phone sales using Analogous Products=== '''Assumptions for Choosing Analogous Products'''<br>It is assumed that the segments of customers that are display sensitive are likely to be early adopters of OLED mobile phones. These customers are likely to pay a premium price for technology that provides better display parameters. Some of the analogous products that replaced older technology on display characteristics in recent past are LCD TV (replaced CRT TV), Plasma TV and LCD monitor (replaced CRT monitors). LCD TV’s and monitors provide better visual impact (their contrast ratios are higher than CRT’s and they display a significant higher number of colors) but it may be argued that they are preferred since they save on space. However, while LCD’s do save on space, they have mostly replaced CRT’s for their demand despite their higher price. '''We have considered the The following products from different product categories as analogous to OLED phoneswere considered:'''<br>
:# LCD TV
:# Plasma Display TV
:# LCD Monitor
They were considered to be befitting analogies because of the following similarities:<br>
[[Image:Similarities.jpg|center|600px]]<br>
'''Weighted average for the analogous products:'''Weights for modeling co-efficients for the analogous products such as LCD TV, Plasma Display TV and LCD monitor had been assigned.<br>To judge the similarity of analogous products to OLED, we examined two criteria.<br>::a. Market Structure<br>::b. Product Characteristics<br>[[Image:SimilaritiesCriterion.jpg|center|700px600px]]<br>
===The '''Estimation of ParametersS-Graph'''===for the cumulative projected sale of OLED display mobiles modeled on analogous products<center><gflash>800 600 http:'''LCD TV'''# We determined the past sales data from 2002 to 2008 through secondary sources//www.# Calculated the cumulative sales till last year for each year idolcera.e. N(t-1)# Ran Non-Linear regression to determine a, b and c.# Calculated m, p and q from the values of a, b and c by putting them in the above mentioned formulascom/website/assets/Chart1.swf</gflash></center>
'''Same procedure is followed for Plasma Display TV and LCD Monitor.'''<br> ===OLED Mobile Phone projections based on Analogous Products===:1. Weighted p and q are calculated based on the analogous products such as LCD TV, Plasma Display TV and LCD monitor.<br>::i. To judge the similarity of analogous products to OLED, we examined two criteria.<br>:::a. Market Structure<br>:::b. Product Characteristics<br> [[Image:Criterion.jpg|center|700px]] ::ii. Depending upon the importance of the criteria, weighing factors were given to them. 0.4 for Market Structure and 0.6 for Product Characteristics.<br>::iii. Based on the similarity of the analogous product numerical weights were assigned to them on a scale of 1 to 10 for each criterion.<br>::iv. Weighted average p and q were calculated based on the p and q values of analogous products and the corresponding weights assigned to them. [[Media:Bass_Model_OLED_analogous.xls|''click here to view details'']]<br>:2. Market potential of OLED phones is taken as the m value of smartphones segment which is 884.07 mn.[[Media:Bass_Model_OLED_Smartphones.xls|''click here to view details'']]<br>:3. Then forecasted the adoption rate of OLED using the basic equation of Bass Model.[[Media:Bass_Model_OLED_analogous.xls|''click here to view details'']]<br> <center><gflash>800 500 http://www.dolcera.com/website/assets/Chart1.swf</gflash></center> :* In 2009 and 2010 OLED Mobile Phone market will would grow at a slow pace because the sale is mainly caused slowly driven by ''innovators.'':* From 2011 to 2015, market will grow at a very fast pace because of rapidly due to the large number of imitators started buying the product at this time. Sales will be driven by ''early adopters.'':* In 2016 and 2017, market will grow at relatively slow rate, sales growth will be mainly caused by dwindle as ''late adopters'' take to the phones:* 2018 onwards growth is very less, sales will be caused by peter, as the laggards. Also pick up the last few models and the market approaches it saturation point.will saturate:* From 2016 there is a dip in the sales, so, there could be technology will near obsolescence and a substitute by that time.new technology would replace it<br>
'''Comparison of Adoption rate of Innovators with those of Imitators'''
:* We determined the The model helps to determine sales caused by to innovators and imitators in each year based on the values of p, q and m.:* m for each year is taken as '''m-N(t-1)''', it represents the number of consumers who have not previously adopted by the start of time ''t'', this is the pool from which the new adoptions in the current period can occur. [[Media:Bass_Model_OLED_analogous.xls|''click here to view details'']]<br>
<center><gflash>800 500 600 http://www.dolcera.com/website/assets/Chart2.swf</gflash></center>
From the above This graph we can see shows that a small number of innovators will kick-start the model is dominated by imitators than innovatorssales. OLED Mobile display mobile Phones will get off to a slow start in first 2 years. However, once Once a '''''critical mass''''' is reached by the end of the second year 2, strong imitative effects will take over and as the number of new innovators to adopt the product will slowly diminish over timedecrease.
==OLED Mobile Phone Projections Based on I-Phone==
