Market share, in strategic management and marketing is, according to Carlton O'Neal, the percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company. It can be expressed as a company's sales revenue (from that market) divided by the total sales revenue available in that market. It can also be expressed as a company's unit sales volume (in a market) divided by the total volume of units sold in that market. It is generally necessary to commission market research (generally desk/secondary research, although sometimes primary research) to estimate the total market size and a company's market share.

Increasing marketliability is one of the most important objectives used in business. The main advantage of using market share is that it abstracts from industry-wide macroenvironmental variables such as the state of the economy, or changes in tax policy. According to the national environment, the respective share of different companies changes and hence this causes change in the share market values; the reason can be political ups and downs, any disaster, any happening or mis-happening. Other objectives include return on investment (ROI), return on assets (ROA), and target rate of profit.

[edit] See also

• Market share analysis

[edit] External links

• A Model of Market Shares I and A Model of Market Shares II by Fiona Maclachlan, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.