When can a lead market be identified

Before ti it is not clear whether the innovation will be adopted at all. This uncertainty is an additional problem that is actually not tackled by the lead market concept. The lead market concept makes expectations about the likelihood that an innovation design preferred by a country can become an internationally dominant design and not whether an innovation design is a market success somewhere at all. Between ti and t2 a lead market analysis is based on the certainty that the innovation is a success in a market and would ask whether this local market success can be transferred to other countries. 

The first phase between the basic invention of an innovation and the first take-off (ti) includes the uncertainty of preferences in country markets. Before ti the lead market analysis would make conditioned expectations such as if the country adopts an innovation, the design preferred has the potential to be adopted worldwide. The lead market concept requires a firm to find out what designs countries 

International diffusion patterns of cellular telephony, the facsimile machine and the personal computer indicated the lead markets years before lag market firms invested in idiosyncratic technologies such as personal satellite communications, telex and non-US PC-standards. 

Fast followers have even some advantages compared to pioneers, because they can learn from the mistakes of the pioneer and use the dominant technology at a lower cost, see e.g., Lieberman, Montgomery (1988). 

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