But Gatorade's core consumers are still athletic sports drinkers - what the industry calls the "active thirst" market.

The company says the trainer market's core consumers are turned off by the Clarks name.

It will also continue to operate its core consumer finance operation, which on Sept. 30 accounted for about 12.5 percent of the company's $30 billion in assets.

Mountain Dew's core consumers seem indifferent to such trivial concerns.

"But as the core consumers get older, I can see the market expanding."

When Schulman left AT&T, he was president of the $22 billion core consumer long distance business.

But the company's core consumer and commercial banking activities, which are centered in the United States, continued to perform well, it said.

Those core consumers are 22 to 24, at a stage in life that Mr. Thomson described as "autonomy without responsibility."

Moreover, to avoid siphoning products from its core consumers, the company is shrinking its distribution.

At the same time, Bank of America's core consumer lending units suffered greater losses as the economy weakened.