A duopoly is advantageous for the companies because it allows them to control the market and companies can operate the market their own way and can increase the price whenever they want.
These companies give more benefits to the customers such as discounts, cashback, and gift voucher codes.
If they are unsuccessful in luring clients, they provide additional conveniences, goods, and services either for free or at affordable pricing. There will mostly be carnage to win and keep clients.
What is Duopoly?
A duopoly is a situation where two companies dominate the market for a product and service. In a duopoly, the business has the same impact on the market just like a monopoly business. Duopoly is a special type of market structure.
Basically, two businesses control a significant part of the market for a particular product or service under a duopoly. Some remarkable duopoly companies are Pepsi & Coca-cola, Visa & Mastercard, etc.
A duopoly is a form of oligopoly. In the duopoly segment, each company competes against the other and tries to keep the price low and benefit the consumer.
Top six duopoly companies in India
Duopoly companies are very popular in India along with the world. In India, there are many duopoly companies in different sectors. We discussed the top duopoly companies below -
1. Taxi Service (Ola vs Uber)
Ola provides the online cab service, Uder & recently launched Indrive. But Ola and Uber dominate the online taxi service market (almost 50% market share). Initially, a few local players had to close their businesses and were acquired by private cab companies.
Ola and Uber had abundant capital. For this reason, many cab companies closed their business and were forced to sell their business to them.
The customers and also cab drivers are suffering a lot due to their duopoly. Customers are facing some issues like switched-off ACs, surge pricing, cancelled rides, lengthy waits, etc.
Some customers are so irate that they vent their frustration on social media, which hurts the company. The fundamental problems of this issue are some of these aggregators' practices and rising fuel prices, so it is not simply the drivers who are to fault.
2. Food Delivery (Zomato vs Swiggy)
When someone orders food in India online, just two companies deliver the food and no other companies do that.
In the beginning, many companies were operating in this segment but giant companies Swiggy and Zomato were either acquired or merged with one of the companies. Among them, the popular ones were Uber Eats, Foodpanda, and Dineout.
Both companies are under fire for their cogent restaurant commission rates and lack of platform neutrality, which results in them giving their preferred merchants and partners more attention.
Hence, customers have two options for ordering online food.
3. Edtech (Byju's vs Unacademy)
The pandemic had positively triggered the ed-tech industry because students failed to attend physical classes.
Everything in education has been forced to quickly adapt to technology. At that time, there was no alternative, therefore students who had never attended online courses were forced to do so.
The giant ed-tech companies recognized the opportunity and went on an aggressive buying binge. "Byju's" acquired some unusual ed-tech companies in 2020-21 such as Akash Coaching institute, Great learning, Toppr, WhiteHa tJr, Gradeup, etc.
Similarly, Unacademy has bought 9 notable companies and some of them are WifiStudy, Prepladder, Mastree, Codechef, etc. Both companies almost dominate the entire ed-tech industry.
4. Telecom (Jio vs Airtel)
After entering Jio, the telecom operators Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, and Bsnl drastically lost the war. Therefore, Vodafone is making losses, Bsnl is losses, Airtel is losses, and Idea is also. But, Airtel came up with a new strategy in business and compete with Jio.
The Jio sim was introduced by Reliance in 2016 and is free for a year. Due to Reliance Jio's price war, other strong companies had not competed with Jio. As a result, other companies merged with some strong companies.
In the 2019 April–June quarter, Airtel posted its first loss in 14 years. In order to survive, the two independent telecoms merged Vodafone and Idea joined in 2018, and they are still making losses.
Jio and Airtel are rapidly growing. Recently, Jio and Airtel have launched 5g technology in many cities in India and compete with each other. Both companies control the price due to having a duopoly.
For this reason, customers have limited options to choices and have to pay for what they want.
5. Supermarkets (DMart vs Reliance Retail)
The supermarkets are growing too fast in India. People prefer buying products from supermarkets over normal shops or markets. They sell products at a very low price and people are willing to purchase more products which raises their ticket size.
Supermarkets operate on a low-margin, high-volume basis as customers make high ticket purchases. In the beginning, individual small shops and Kirana stores ran the mid-size stores in cities and even in rural areas.
But giant Dmart and Reliance Retail are eating all the small businesses and these companies are capturing the market very faster.
6. E-commerce (Amazon vs Flipkart)
Two American e-commerce giants, Amazon, and Flipkart are the most remarkable players in this segment. These companies mainly control this segment.
Most Indians who shop online are from the Middle Class, as offering the lowest prices is the best strategy for luring Indian shoppers.
They have billion of dollars of money to compete with each other and other competitors also but others did not survive. Flipkart acquired Myntra and Susta Sundar.
According to allegations, both of these companies give some sellers top priority while selling their brands of products and exploiting the data, causing other sellers who are their partners to lose out on sales. As of right now, CCI is looking into and researching these allegations.
Local retail shops are facing too many problems because they sell products directly to the customers at a cheaper price.
Conclusion
The duopoly companies are the best choice from an investment point of view. The duopoly companies are rising in India as well as World also. Because these companies have more capital they can help them to acquire small companies or bankrupt their competitors.
Healthy competition between companies will be beneficial since it can expand the possibilities for consumers to purchase goods and services in developing countries just like India.
But the China government took action against the companies which occurred the most market share and the policy can harm their people in the short run. Fair competition and ethical business practices have the potential to create opportunities for all in the long run.
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