Market Share

The term " market share" is typically viewed as the share of the total sales of all brands of products competing in the same market that is captured by one particular brand or product, usually expressed as a percentage. Although the phrase is popular, market share can be difficult to measure and specific information is not always easy to locate. Just because the term is widely used does not mean that the market share for a company or product is easily found. To assist you in finding information relating to market share, some basic books, articles and databases are provided below.

Books

To locate books in the library catalogue use a keyword or subject search. A keyword search has the advantage of often picking up the phrase "market share" when it appears in the table of contents of the book.

Reference Books

Begin your search with these reference books:

Gale Research Inc.
Market Share Reporter
HF5415.M293 2004
HF5415.M293 1991-1992,1994,1997,1999, 2002
An annual compilation of reported market share data on companies, products, and services.

An example of an entry:

World Market Share Reporter
HF5410.W671999/2000
HF5410.W671995/1996
A compilation of reported world market share data and rankings on companies, products, and services.

Selected General Books about Market Share

Gordon, Ian
Competitor Targeting: Winning the Battle for Market and Customer Share
HD38.7.G672 2002

Miniter, Richard
The Myth of Market Share: Why Market Share is the Fool's Gold of Business
HD2757.15.M56 2002

Osenton, Tom
Customer Share Marketing: How the World's Great Marketers Unlock Profits from Customer Loyalty
HF5415.55.O84 2002

Osenton, Tom
The Death of Demand: Finding Growth in a Saturated Global Economy
HD2785.O824 2004

Reddy, Allan C.
Total Quality Marketing: The Key to Regaining Market Shares
HF5415.1.R415 1994

Rosenbaum, David Ira.
Market Dominance: How Firms Gain, Hold, Or Lose it and the Impact on Economic Performance
HD2757.15.M37 1998

Ryans, Adrian B.
Market Share Volatility
HF5006.L67 no. 86-25

Weinstein, Art
Defining your Market: Winning Strategies for High-tech, Industrial, and Service Firms
HD30.28.W376 1998

Databases

Below are some databases that are useful for finding information, with basic instructions on how to search them.

Factiva
The phrase "market share" can be searched and combined with the company or product you are researching. To ensure that you get all related results you can use the search expression "market w/2 share"(i.e. the word "market" is within two of "share") so that references to "share of the market" are also retrieved.
You can also choose the "subject" Market Share, and click on the blue up arrow to add the code to the search field. To limit, type AND followed by another topic. Also be aware that the date can be changed.

Passport GMID
For reports, make sure that "Companies and Market Share" is the only filter selected on the toolbar across the top. Choose "country" and select "category" (only a few category options will appear). Select "run search" at the bottom of the page.

LexisNexis
To find market share information for an industry, choose "business" from the left side (under Academic Search Forms), choose "Industry and Market" under news. From here, you can pick from the list of industries and narrow your search and dates.

Mintel
Contains market research reports covering US and International marketplaces, which sometimes provides market-share analysis. Choose "search" from the toolbar across the top, and perform a full-text search for "market share" in reports. You can refine your search by category and/or country.

Mintel Global Market Navigator
A reliable global market data resource providing market size, market share, market forecasts and segmentation.

ProQuest
There are a number of business databases produced by ProQuest. For purely theoretical/academic articles we suggest that you use ABI/INFORM. For more specific product or company data also use Trade & Industry and Dateline. Canadian-related information can frequently be found on CBCA.

"Market share" is a subject and many articles will be found. To limit the number of results you can also simply: look for the phrase in only the title or abstract; look for the phrase in relation to a company or product and restrict the results by using the proximity operator. For example, the search string "market share w/4 (cars or automobiles or vehicles)" will find the phrase "market share" within four words of the other words contained in the parenthesis. To illustrate the kinds of articles that can be found we will provide a few theoretical and practical ones below.

Consulting, Eclat. "U.S. Industry Traffic Market Share." Aviation Daily 363.33 (2006): 7.

Duecy, Erica. "Major Chains Post Biggest Market Share Increases in 2005." Nation's Restaurant News 39.51 (2005): 18.

Keely, Ann. "How Important is Market Share?" Management review 78.6 (1989): 55.

Monahan, George E. "The Structure of Equilibria in Market Share Attraction Models." Management Science 33.2 (1987): 228.

Ryans, Adrian B. "Strategic Market Entry Factors and Market Share Achievement." Journal of International Business Studies 19.3 (1988): 389.

Wong, Ken. "Market Share Myopia." Marketing 111.5 (2006): 9.

Special Issues
A search for publications special issues, which contains some linked full text. Begin by choosing search from the toolbar. For a description, click here. For access, click here.