globalEDGE

Global marketing has become more and more important over the years with the increasing trend of internationalization. Faced with too many choices, marketers have the challenge of determining which international markets to enter and the appropriate marketing strategies for those countries. The purpose of this study is to rank, with a US focus, the market potential of the largest economies and to provide guidance to the US companies that plan to expand their markets internationally. While the US is not included in the rankings, the insights provided by the index are still applicable to companies located in other international markets. This indexing study is conducted by the Michigan State University — International Business Center to help companies compare prospect markets on several dimensions. Eight dimensions are chosen to represent the market potential of a country on a scale of 1 to 100. The dimensions are measured using various indicators and are weighted in determining their contribution to the overall Market Potential Index(MPI). Between years 1996 and 2014, the MPI has been calculated for 26 countries identified as "Emerging Markets" by The Economist magazine. However, in order to cover a wider range of markets, a decision has been made in 2014 to increase the number of countries according to the criteria explained below.