In this study, we provide a game-theoretic analysis to investigate an entrant firm’s partner selection for offering its new product to a market, particularly to a foreign market. The entrant has either a brand advantage or technological superiority over incumbent firms. We analyze the strategic interaction between one entrant and three incumbent firms that include one major firm (or a firm offering a popular product) and two local firms (or firms offering niche products). We explore the impact of such asymmetric demand structures on the entrant’s partner selection.

Our equilibrium analysis indicates that forming a partnership with a firm that currently has the largest market share because of its superior product is not necessarily optimal for the entrant. When the value offered by the entrant is significantly high, it is more beneficial for the entrant to ally with the major firm, even if that firm currently has a smaller market share than the local firms because of its inferior product. We also demonstrate that when the entrant can add technological superiority to the partner’s product, the entrant’s optimal partner selection may change non-monotonically in the degree of this superiority. Furthermore, in response to the entrant’s optimal partner selection, the relative profitability between incumbent firms can reverse discontinuously and drastically according to the degree of the value offered by the entrant.

在这项研究中，我们提供了一项博弈论分析，以调查进入公司的合作伙伴选择，以将其新产品推向市场，特别是向国外市场。与现有公司相比，新进入者具有品牌优势或技术优势。我们分析了一个进入者和三个老牌公司之间的战略互动，其中包括一家主要公司（或提供流行产品的公司）和两家本地公司（或提供利基产品的公司）。我们探索了这种不对称的需求结构对新进入者的合作伙伴选择的影响。

我们的均衡分析表明，与一家因其卓越的产品而目前拥有最大市场份额的公司建立合伙关系，不一定对进入者而言是最佳的。当进入者提供的价值非常高时，即使进入者由于其劣等产品而目前的市场份额比本地公司小，但即使与主要公司结盟也有利于进入者与主要公司结盟。我们还证明，当进入者可以为合作伙伴的产品增加技术优势时，进入者的最佳合作伙伴选择可能会在这种优势程度上发生非单调的变化。此外，为了响应参赛者的最佳合作伙伴选择，