base

/beɪs/ noun [C]

Definition

› the place where a company does its main business from: The company, which has its base in California, plans to set up an office in Beijing.

› all the resources or people that a company, etc. depends on in order to be successful: a company's economic/industrial/research base Manchester United's fans make up 17% of its shareholder base. → See also asset base, client base, consumer base, customer base, installed base, knowledge base, manufacturing base, product base

› a positive feature of a situation that makes it possible for something else to grow and develop: base (for sth) A cut to 10p per share would give a yield of 5.8% and a new base for dividend growth.

› FINANCE an amount of money or a number that is used to compare other amounts of money or numbers to, especially as a way of measuring whether prices or numbers have increased or decreased: The newspaper hopes to add several million dollars to its revenue base from the switchover. → See also cost base, monetary base, tax base

(Definition of base noun from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)