Network effects, word of mouth, and entry performance: A study of digital freemium products

Abstract

International entry research rarely examines strategies affecting entry performance in a target country, largely due to data limitations in the traditional multinational enterprise setting. However, the emergence of digital business with trackable international performance data helps address this gap. We utilize digital freemium products as our research context to examine the effect of two major demand-side strategies associated with freemium products, network effects and word-of-mouth (WOM), on entry performance across different institutional environments. By analyzing 1,891 freemium games, we show that lower network readiness of a target country strengthens the impact of network effects on entry performance whereas higher network readiness strengthens the impact of WOM. Our findings generate new insights by integrating the literature on foreign entry performance and digital internationalization.