An important issue for most businesses is answering question, "What is my market share?" Fixed in the question is a series of related business issues. The underlying themes typically include the following:
Market demand - "How many dollars are there in this market for our product?"
Market potential - "How much of the potential in the market can we capture?" (Tipp 2001).
This paper attempts to estimate the market demand and potential of Personal Digitial Assistant (PDAs) in a defined geographic market of the State of Maryland. The study focuses on the TOSHIBA AMERICA INFORMATION SYSTEMS, INC. - a major PDA manufacture and based in California, U.S.A. It begins with a brief product description followed by methodology and an estimate of market and potential demand supported by primary and secondary research. It concludes with a summary of findings.
Product Description
Toshiba designed PDA for users who need a PDA that does more than simple calendar and address book functionality, the Toshiba PDA with Pocket PC Series delivers a robust application feature-set and expansion capabilities empowering the user to stay productive all the time. These PDAs are Powered by the Intel® processor with Intel XScale technology at 200MHz to 300MHz and 32 to 64MB of RAM, the Pocket PC edition of PDAs delivers a powerful feature-set to keep users productive at all times. Toshiba competes with the other manufacture that also uses Palm operating system in the PDA.
Methodology
Kotler and Gary (2001) defines, "the total market demand for a product or service is the total volume that would be bought by a defined consumer group in a defined geographic area in a defined time period and in a defined marketing environment under a defined level and mix of industry marketing effort". There are several methods exists to determine market demand and potential such as chain ratio method, market buildup method, market factor index method. This specific case uses the chain
References: Economic Census (1997), Economic Census, "Economic Census: Bridge Between NAICS and SIC Manufacturing" Retrieved May 25, 2003; http://www.census.gov/epcd/ec97brdg/E97B1334.HTM#334111 Kotler, P.(2002). Marketing Management (Rev. custom 10th ed., University of Phoenix). Pearson Custom Publishing. Kotler, Garry (2001) Principles of Marketing, Prentice Hall, New Jersy, Appendix-I. US Census (2000), US Census Bureau, "State and Country QuickFacts" Retrieved May 25, 2003; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24000.html Tipp, J. (2001). Business Geographics, "Calculate Market Opportunity", Geoplace.com, Retrieved May 21, 2003; http://www.geoplace.com/bg/2000/0800/0800ma.asp