Hi Atul,
The best sources are from trade/industry bodies. Some of these industry bodies are prompt in collating and publishing even monthly figures. The best example is perhaps SIAM - Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. You get every category details 2 wheelers, 3wheelers, LCVs, etc etc.
Obviously not every industry is as proactive or needs to be as SIAM. But mostly you are able to get some details from these industry bodies and their publications.
But most times it doesn’t really need absolute figures - it needs us to think about the opportunity more clearly; how often do we see these products used, does every household/individual need to use these products (if that’s the case, its one of those businesses where we can get a better handle on, unlike say chemical oligopolies like Vinati’s ATBS or Balaji’s NMP just to cite the difference in scale); what are the competing technologies here…and they give us a rough size of one opportunity versus another. Among our kind of companies it must be very clear that someone supplying artificial leather to Automotive seat assemblers, footwear and furnishers may have a large size of market. And similarly somebody manufacturing PVC/CPVC plumbing pipes/systems should also have a very big market size
You can search for industry bodies (global, or US market) that will have some data, you can search for the biggest companies in the space and look at their data/investor presentations; You can set google alerts; you can read trade magazines, interviews of Management;;;
point is, if you are focused about getting more educated on the industry issues, competitors, size, entry barriers, etc - and go about this with dedication - in today’s information age, sooner or later you will get enough references to details, if not the details itself.
and then you need to evaluate other things like the competitive ability, drive and ambition, stated goals, ability to fund the growth by conservative means, etc, etc, etc.
