听力文本如下:
A “competitor” (competitor) is a person or a business that sells a similar product to a similar group of customers as you do.
Toyota is a competitor for Honda for the car market in the United States.
They are two companies that sell a similar product - a similar thing - to a similar group of people, or to the same group of people.
Shawn says that the second thing - the second reason why the company may be losing its market share - is the product's features, or the characteristics of the product.
And he says that the third thing is poor advertising.
“Advertising” (advertising) is the use of television commercials, radio commercials, printed advertisements like in a newspaper, and the Internet to make people want to buy your product or service.
Vision Corporation has poor advertising, meaning that it doesn't do a very good job of making people want to buy its product.
We use the word “poor,” here, to mean bad - not very good.
Then Shawn says that the number of competitors in the industry has doubled in the past year.
“To double” (double) means to increase two times, or twice as much - to increase 100%.
For example, you might say that sales doubled from $16,000 to $32,000.
Shawn says that to counter the large number of competitors, the company must learn to differentiate itself from other companies.
“To counter (counter) something” means to work against something, or to balance something by working in the opposite direction.
You might decide to drive less to counter the large amount of money you have to spend on high gasoline prices.