“Cannibalizing” only requires a new product to grow at the expense of an older one. Total revenue and profit can be lower, higher, or net neutral. Arguably, th

“Cannibalizing” only requires a new product to grow at the expense of an older one. Total revenue and profit can be lower, higher, or net neutral. Arguably, the most famous examples include combined profits exceeding those of the product being cannibalized: iPhone vs iPad, or Netflix streaming vs Netflix DVD-by-mail. This would actually be expected, since any other sort of cannibization would constitute quite a bad managerial decision. If anything, errors seem to be made more often in the opposite direction: existing products tend to have a leg up in internal politics and therefore more likely to fall prey to external competition rather than internal cannibals. Plus the inherent risk of food born pathogens like mad cow making cannibalism inherently risky.