SIZING YOUR MARKET (TAM, SAM, SOM) 

Understanding the Framework

🔹 TAM (Total Addressable Market)

This is the total market demand for your product or service if every potential customer, in every possible market, used your offering.
In simpler terms: “If everyone who could buy, did buy how big would the market be?”

Example:
If you sell plant-based protein powders in India, your TAM could be the entire Indian nutrition and supplement industry, worth thousands of crores.

🔹 SAM (Serviceable Available Market)

Now, narrow it down to the market segment you can actually serve, based on your business model, product relevance, and distribution reach.

Example:
Out of the total supplement industry, your SAM might be urban health-conscious millennials in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, who buy protein online or from premium stores.

🔹 SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)

Finally, this represents the market share you can realistically capture in the short to medium term considering competition, budget, and brand maturity.

Example:
If your current capacity and marketing strength can reach only 2% of your SAM, that’s your SOM your real, actionable opportunity size.

Why Market Sizing Matters for Indian Brands

India’s markets are diverse and fragmented price-sensitive yet aspirational, traditional yet digital-first.
Accurately sizing your market ensures that your strategy, pricing, and product development are aligned to reality, not optimism.

Key reasons to size your market effectively:

• Investor Readiness: Data-backed market sizing builds credibility and confidence during fundraising.

• Strategic Focus: It helps prioritize where to play and where not to.

• Resource Allocation: Prevents overspending on unreachable markets.

• Growth Forecasting: Lays a foundation for sales and revenue projections.

How to Calculate TAM, SAM, and SOM in the Indian Context

Here’s a simple step-by-step structure used by our team at AnveMark:

Step 1: Define the Industry Universe (TAM)

Start broad. Use data from industry associations, government databases, and credible secondary sources like Statista, IBEF, and CRISIL.

Example: The total Indian packaged food industry = ₹5,00,000 crore.

Step 2: Filter by Relevance (SAM)

Narrow the scope by segment, price tier, region, or consumer type.

Example: Health-focused packaged foods segment = ₹50,000 crore.

Step 3: Estimate Realistic Reach (SOM)

Combine primary market research, distribution mapping, and competitive benchmarking to assess your achievable share.

Example: With your budget, brand awareness, and supply chain, a 1% share = ₹500 crore SOM.

AnveMark’s Approach: From Data to Decision

What makes AnveMark’s market sizing methodology stand apart is our ability to merge statistical models with ground-level insights.
Our research teams integrate:

• Consumer panel data for behavioral validation

• Ethnographic studies to understand emerging micro-markets

• Digital analytics & search trends to gauge intent

• Field-level sampling to localize estimates in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities

This ensures our clients don’t just get numbers they get a strategic map of opportunity tailored for the real Indian market, not a Westernized model copy-pasted into India’s unique ecosystem.

Common Mistakes Brands Make

1. Assuming TAM = Revenue: Every big market doesn’t translate into reachable customers.

2. Overestimating Reach: Ignoring logistical, regulatory, or cultural barriers.

3. Using Generic Data: Not localizing research to Indian sub-segments.

4. Ignoring Competition Saturation: SOM is about what you can capture, not what exists.

Final Thought

Sizing your market isn’t just an investor exercise, it’s the first test of your brand’s realism and vision.
For Indian entrepreneurs and marketers, understanding your TAM, SAM, and SOM means you’re not just building a brand, you’re building a strategy grounded in data and opportunity.

At AnveMark Research Pvt. Ltd., we help brands go beyond instinct to build data-backed growth roadmaps for a rapidly changing India.
Because in today’s competitive environment, clarity is not a luxury, it’s an advantage.

Download Our Free Template:

Use AnveMark’s Market Sizing Framework Template  & How to use Market Sizing Framework Template to map your TAM, SAM, and SOM with guided formulas and data input suggestions customized for Indian businesses.