• Title/Summary/Keyword: late mover's advantage

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How Does a Tortoise Catch up a Hare? : The Case of Instant Messenger in Korea

  • Lee, Sang-Myung;Choi, Jeong-Il;Ahn, Sang-Hyung
    • Journal of Digital Convergence
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.125-136
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    • 2009
  • SK Communications entered Korean instant messenger market as a late-mover in 2001 and its instant messenger service "NateOn" was placed in competition with Microsoft's "MSN Messenger", the leading service provider at the time. NateOn studied the nature of users accurately and gradually increased its market share through various services, and in September 2005, it succeeded in overtaking MSN as No.1 in the market. The success of NateOn is a case where a late-mover overcame the buddy-list network, a powerful competitive advantage, of the incumbent. By studying the changes in the instant messenger market of Korea, we try to examine the causes of NateOn's victory and MSN's loss. Through this, we wish to give implications for managers who endeavor to discover the internal and external strategies the leading business has to implement to remain ahead, and how a late-mover can overcome the lack of resources and capacity to leave a mark in the market.

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Catching-up to the Market Leader: Role of Entry Time-lag, Alliance, and Capability in the Catch-up Success (기술 사업화에 있어 후발자의 시장 추격 전략: 진입시간차, 기업의 역량 및 제휴 관점에서)

  • Kim, Hye-Jun;Chang, Sung-Yong;Song, Jae-Yong
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.141-167
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    • 2012
  • Along with technological innovation, successful market entry of a new product is important for sustainable innovation of a firm. In this paper, we examined factors that affect successful introduction of new branded drugs in pharmaceutical industry. Under competing theories of the first mover's advantage and the late mover's advantage, this research focuses on how latecomers can overcome the disadvantages of late entry and catch up to the market leader. First, late movers can absorb the knowledge leaked from pioneering product during the time lag between early entrants and late entrants. Therefore, the time lag provides late entrants an opportunity to catch-up to market leader by differentiating and improving the quality of new product. Second, superior marketing capability of late entrants can enhance the possibility of catching-up, by overcoming the consumer base of early entrants.

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