It also wants to beef up domestic customers, who have been leaving in droves for smaller, cheaper rivals, by more than 40 percent this year.

But as the domestic market filled with smaller, cheaper rivals, Huawei has turned to new sources of growth abroad.

U.S. Steel, pounded by cheap foreign rivals and chronic overcapacity in the United States, spent more than two decades shrinking to a shadow of its former self.

Pharmaceutical companies typically promote their newest and most expensive drugs heavily, even if there is scant evidence that they are any better than older and cheaper rivals.

Analysts warn that Sony could lose huge swaths of potential users, like women and teenagers, to cheaper, simpler rivals like Wii or Xbox 360.

The big rental-car companies first began offering customers points for airline frequent-flier clubs in the 1980's as a way to lure them away from cheaper rivals and to keep them loyal.

Besides demands for lower prices, another problem for many hotels is the move by corporations to switch at least some of their business to cheaper rivals.

Well, if your sales are getting eaten alive by cheaper rivals, and you don't want to play the price game, you have only one option: play leapfrog.

Continual management changes and millions spent on many different plans and products had saddled Piaggio with debt and left it vulnerable to competition from cheaper Asian rivals.

The reductions appeared to be part of a broader effort by the world's biggest computer manufacturer to make its Personal System-2 computers more competitive with cheaper rivals.