The Myth of Market Share: Why Market Share Is the Fool's Gold of Business

Miniter, a former editor for The Wall Street Journal Europe, relishes in debunking the popular dot-com era myth that market share trumps old-fashioned profits. The author sees belief in market share as an unholy cult, and attacks the idea with his own religious zeal. His point: industry-dominating companies don't always have desirable rates of return for investors. In fact, massive size can often mean lousy performance. Savvy investors, of course, have long known about how unwieldy corporate giants can be. But it's a valid point, and this new addition to Crown's Business Briefings series certainly hammers away at it. For flavor, Miniter tosses in a variety of disastrous case studies (e.g., Chrysler, Boeing), and even reaches back to the Robber Barons for some historical heft. The hard-won lesson, in every case, is that size doesn't matter.