What term is used for the largest possible market a product could ever serve?

The term used for the largest possible market a product could ever serve is the Total Addressable Market (TAM). TAM represents the absolute maximum revenue opportunity available for a product or service if it were to achieve 100% market share within its defined market. It quantifies the entire potential demand for a product or service, assuming no competitive limitations or practical constraints on reach or distribution. This theoretical maximum considers every potential customer or user who could possibly benefit from, or has a need for, the product or service, across all relevant geographies and demographics. It provides an upper bound on market size, indicating the ultimate growth potential of a business if it could capture every single potential customer. Understanding TAM is crucial for strategic planning, assessing long-term growth prospects, and attracting investors, as it provides a benchmark for the total value that a company is aiming to serve. While TAM represents the entire market, it is often further segmented for practical business planning. For instance, the Serviceable Available Market (SAM) refers to the portion of the TAM that a company's specific business model, technology, or geographical footprint can realistically serve. The Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), also known as Share of Market, is the segment of SAM that a company can realistically capture, considering competitive factors and its own operational capacity. For example, if a company invents a revolutionary new universal language translator, its TAM would encompass every single person on Earth who could potentially benefit from communicating across language barriers, regardless of their current access to technology or ability to pay. The SAM would then be limited to the people in regions where the device is launched and distributed, and the SOM would be the specific percentage of that regional market the company expects to win against competitors.