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NTU Management Review Vol. 33 No. 3 Dec. 2023

1. Introduction

In this decade, mobile technologies are of great importance in people’s daily lives,
and most people install their favorite applications (apps) on mobile devices, such as

cell phones or tablets. To make a profit, app companies have developed various types of
apps such as game apps, calculation apps, picture apps, social media apps, etc. for users
to utilize in their lives. These apps all play important roles for users according to their
various functions. In addition to the aforementioned apps, health apps are becoming

more important for human beings (Xiong and Zuo, 2023). According to the definition of
previous research, health apps are designed to provide some functions including tracking
diets (weight change and dietary control) and improving nutrition, identifying symptoms
(heartbeat, blood sugar and pressure), increasing physical activity (fitness support), and

providing medication reminders, etc. (Cho, 2016; Chen, Yang, Zhang, and Yang, 2018;
Xiong and Zuo, 2023). Health app may need to be downloaded and installed by the users,
or it may be just one of the default mobile apps (Chen et al., 2018; Xiong and Zuo, 2023).
IQVIA (2017) reported that “Over 318,000 health apps are now available on top app stores

worldwide with more than 200 health apps being added each day.”
Although health apps are useful and increasingly popular, studies have pointed out
that users of health apps easily abandon their original apps and switch to new apps because
they lose interest or feel that the apps are wasting their time (Vaghefi and Tulu, 2019).

For example, Krebs and Duncan (2015) conduct an early survey of 1,604 mobile phone
users in the United States and find that about half of the respondents (427/934, 45.7%)
downloaded health apps before but are no longer using them. This study points out three
superficial reasons for abandoning health apps, including: (1) lost interest (173/427, 40%),

(2) did not help me as I wanted (81/427, 19%), and (3) found better apps (66/427, 15.5%).
Likewise, Vaghefi and Tulu (2019) also find that for using of health apps, people often face
four types of decisions, including: abandon use, limit use, switch apps, and continue use.
They find that users may turn to other health apps if the initial health app doesn't meet their

featural expectations. Based on these previous studies, we know that it is not uncommon
for health apps users to make switching decisions. Meanwhile, most health apps are free
and developers adopt freemium strategies or advertisements to earn enough profit to cover
the development costs. However, if users switch from their original health apps to other

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