MARKETING IN THE RARE EARTH METALS INDUSTRY

Abstract

Until the beginning of 2000s, only a small number of people were familiar with rare earth metals (or elements), and these people were engineers, scientists, chemists, geologists. But in the last 15 years rare earth metals became very visible and even popular because the development of humanity in technological way is impossible without these metals. People started to understand the essentiality of the rare earth metals, nations’ governments started campaigns of state support for rare earth metals exploration, and mining; mining companies began to plan diversifying their activities in rare earth metals production; investors started seeking new companies who could break China’s monopoly in the market. In this study, we will focus predominantly on strategy and marketing factors that determine success in this industry. In our strategic analysis, we will consider entry/exit considerations, company/competitive/consumer considerations, and finally propose a segmentation framework that will help producers to target markets which likely would provide a good fit.