What the Honda Super Cub Can Teach Us About Designing for Global Markets

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Most companies enter emerging markets through one of three flawed strategies: selling premium products to the wealthy few, stripping features to cut costs, or offering micro-sized

Most companies approach emerging markets with one of three flawed strategies: they try to sell their premium products to the wealthy few and wait for the market to “catch up,” strip features off existing products to lower the price, or micro-size their offerings into single-use portions. All three usually fail because they assume that consumers in poorer markets want the same things as wealthier countries, only cheaper.