Segmenting industrial competitive markets: An example from air freight

This paper applies a disaggregated approach to segment industrial markets under competitive structures taking the air-freight market for the high-technology product industry in Taiwan as a case study. Data from firms is used to examine the structure of the air freight industry and we find that carriers are clustered into two strategic groups, express and forwarder. Pricing is a leading strategy recognized by customers for forwarders, whereas service punctuality and freight security are the winning strategies for express. The high-tech freight market is classifiable by shipment destination and size.

► The paper uses nested logit and latent class models to segment the air freight market.
► An analysis of Taiwanese high-technology traffic supports the traditional distinction between forwarders and express carriers.
► Users of air freight that use forwarders are more interested in the prices offered than those that use express carriers who focus on other attributes of service such as security.