{ "license": { "ours": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "terms": "/licence/", "note": "Notes, \"Where things stand\" and the record are CC BY 4.0. Excerpts and quotations belong to their owners." }, "no": 4, "slug": "india-business-groups-market-power", "title": "India’s business groups and the argument over their power", "nativeTitle": { "text": "कुछ घराने, कई बाज़ार", "lang": "hi" }, "nativePending": null, "summary": "India’s largest family business groups have spread into more industries since 2000, and the top 25 groups’ revenues grew from 11% to 15% of GDP even as concentration across the economy fell. Economists disagree on whether their size lets them raise prices. The record also follows India’s argument over monopoly since the 1960s, and how America, Japan and Korea dealt with big business.", "standfirst": "A record of how much of India’s economy a few family business groups hold, where people meet that in the prices they pay, whether size raises prices, and how India and other countries have tried to check big business.", "opened": "2026-09-30", "closed": null, "keptBy": "The editors", "url": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/", "whereThingsStand": { "revision": 1, "date": "2026-09-30", "changed": "The Long View added the latest concentration and markup findings, set the competing accounts of prices beside evidence on tariff cuts, and traced the debate through Indian consumer markets, competition law, and the US, Japanese and Korean records.", "body": "Between 2001 and 2020, market concentration, or how much of an industry’s sales its largest firms take, fell across India, [mainly because the state sector shrank](https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhag026).\n\n\nDespite the fall in overall concentration, many industries remained dominated by a few firms. In 2020, the five largest firms took over 70% of sales in more than half of the study’s detailed industry categories.\n\nThe largest family groups gained economic weight even as overall concentration fell. The top 25 family business groups’ revenues rose from 11% of India’s GDP in 2001 to more than 15% in 2020, and their sales compared with costs that vary with output, the study’s measure of markups, rose 16% from 2013 to 2020.\n\nFive named conglomerates [increased their hold over non-financial assets](https://w4.stern.nyu.edu/sternfin/vacharya/public_html/pdfs/Brookings%20India%20piece%20Acharya%20March%202023%20v15.pdf#page=14). The five largest groups named by Viral Acharya and Rahul Singh Chauhan are Reliance, Tata, Aditya Birla, Adani and Bharti Telecom. Their share of assets in sectors outside finance rose from 10% in 1991 to nearly 18% in 2021, while the next five groups’ share fell from 18% in 1992 to less than 9%.\n\nThe five groups held especially large sales shares in telecommunications, retail trade and civil engineering and construction. By 2021, the five groups held over 84% of telecommunications sales, over 65% of retail trade sales and 42% of civil engineering and construction sales, up from 31% in 2016.\n\nFamily groups entered new industries, usually without quickly winning much of their sales. The top 25 family groups also entered new industries, though in just under 90% of cases they had less than 5% of sales five years after entering.\n\n\nAcharya and Chauhan found that a larger sales share for the five biggest groups within an industry was associated with higher wholesale-price inflation the following year. They estimated that a 10% rise in the groups’ share of industry sales was associated with 2.7 percentage points more wholesale-price inflation the next year.\n\nSBI Research’s measure of concentration-weighted consumer prices [stayed below core inflation for most of the period](https://sbi.bank.in/documents/13958/36530824/240423-Ecowrap_20230423.pdf/fa4690e0-ddf9-2cb6-59af-dcbd33e2fbd2?t=1682313253274) it studied. SBI Research compared core consumer-price inflation with an index that reweighted consumer prices according to how concentrated each sector was; its index stayed below core inflation from January 2015 except from January to November 2020 and later during the pandemic. SBI Research put the rise in prices during the pandemic down more to supply-chain and logistical disruptions, from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, than to firms’ pricing power, and its model found that a 1% increase in food prices raised general consumer-price inflation by 0.6% between April 2014 and February 2023.\n\nTariff cuts [lowered costs faster than prices](https://akhandelwal8.github.io/files/ecma_PMTR/PMTR.pdf#page=1), while firms’ markups rose. A study of tariff cuts from 1989 to 1997 found that factory-gate prices fell 18.1% while the cost of making additional output fell 30.7%; markups rose 12.6% as firms passed on only a small share of their cost savings. The study found no different effect from the trade reform for firms that belonged to business groups.\n\n\nIn June 2024, Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea announced mobile tariff rises within hours of one another. A JP Morgan note cited by The Indian Express called Jio the sector’s price setter and said its change to the threshold for unlimited 5G data drove a 46% tariff increase for users on 5G plans.\n\nThe Department of Telecommunications said mobile rates had been determined under forbearance by the telecom regulator for two decades, and that with three private players and one public sector player, the market operates under the forces of demand and supply.\n\nTwo airline groups held most of India’s domestic aviation market in 2025. IndiGo and the Air India Group [together held 91% of India’s domestic aviation market](https://m.thewire.in/article/travel/indigo-and-air-india-hold-91-of-domestic-aviation-market-govt-tells-parliament) in 2025, according to figures given to Parliament. The government’s figures put IndiGo’s share at nearly 64% and the Air India Group’s at 27%.\n\nA parliamentary committee found airlines’ self-regulation of fares ineffective and recommended that the aviation regulator be empowered to regulate fares. A parliamentary committee said in 2024 that airlines’ self-regulation of fares was ineffective, and recommended a ceiling on fares route by route and a way for the aviation regulator, the DGCA, to regulate them.\n\nAdani subsidiaries operated seven Airports Authority of India airports in 2025; in 2024, privately operated airports averaged 4.96 out of five for passenger satisfaction, compared with 4.81 for Airports Authority of India airports.\n\nThe 2019 airport tender set aside a Finance Ministry proposal to limit how many airports one bidder could win. At a 2019 airport tender, the Finance Ministry recommended that no bidder receive more than two airports, but the committee set that advice aside and Adani Enterprises was declared the highest bidder for all six.\n\nAdani Ports said it handled 27.1% of all cargo in India and 45.5% of the country’s container traffic in FY26.\n\n\nThe cement case found that companies could lack dominance as a single firm or group and still [act together to restrict supply and fix prices](https://cci.gov.in/images/whatsnew/en/final-order-291652520915.pdf#page=19). In cement, the Competition Commission found that no single firm or group could act independently of competitive forces, but held that companies shared prices and production information through their association and acted together to fix prices and restrict supply. In 2018, the competition tribunal dismissed appeals by 11 cement companies and their association, upholding the finding that they had fixed prices and limited supply.\n\n\nIndia’s inquiries in the 1960s found production of some goods concentrated in a few firms, and large industrial houses filing a large share of licence applications. [The 1965 Monopolies Inquiry Commission](https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1965%20Dasgupta%20Committee%20-%20Monopolies%20Enquiry%20Commission%20Report.pdf#page=173) found that Union Carbide made 82% of dry-battery output and Mahindra Owen made 86.6% of trailer output; its majority called the concentration that came with business groups spreading across industries a necessary evil in the country’s economic interests, while recommending a watchful eye on dominant enterprises and action against restrictive practices.\n\nTwo inquiries into industrial licensing measured what the large houses took: a fifth of all licence applications in one, and most of the licensed capacity for rayon grade pulp in the other. R. K. Hazari found that the 28 houses whose applications each involved investment above ₹10 crore filed 1,961 licence applications between 1959 and June 1966, equal to 21% of applications after deferred cases were excluded. A later licensing inquiry found that in rayon grade pulp, one of the products it studied, large industrial houses held about 84% of the licensed capacity, with the Birla house alone holding 36% and Sahu Jain 20%.\n\nIndia’s competition law moved from the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1969 to [the Competition Act of 2002](https://www.cci.gov.in/images/legalframeworkact/en/the-competition-act-20021652103427.pdf#page=9), then changed again in 2023. A committee reviewing the 1969 Act said it did not define or even name practices such as abuse of dominance, cartels and predatory pricing, and proposed replacing the Act and its commission with a Competition Commission of India. The 2002 Act provided for the Competition Commission of India and treated agreements between competitors to fix prices, divide markets or rig bids as presumed to harm competition. The 2023 amendment added a transaction-value test for mergers: once the change is in force, a deal above the stated value threshold can count as a combination subject to review if the business being acquired has substantial operations in India.\n\n\nThe United States made restraints of trade and attempts to monopolise illegal under the Sherman Act of 1890, and in 1911 [the Supreme Court upheld the dissolution](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep221/usrep221001/usrep221001.pdf#page=76) of Standard Oil’s combination.\n\nBrandeis argued that investment bankers had gained power over much of American business. In 1914, Louis Brandeis argued that a small group of investment bankers held power over American business through their ties to banks, railroads and industrial firms.\n\nLina Khan argues that US antitrust law should look beyond low prices when judging competition. Lina Khan argues that the Chicago-school turn in antitrust thinking made low prices alone count as evidence of sound competition, and calls for attention to [the competitive process and market structure](https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf#page=7), or for dominant platforms to be regulated as common carriers.\n\nThe Microsoft appeals court upheld part of the finding against the company but set aside the order to split it. In the Microsoft case, an appeals court upheld the finding that Microsoft unlawfully maintained its operating-system monopoly, reversed the finding that it tried to monopolise the browser market and set aside the order to split the company.\n\n\nJapan and South Korea used state action to address large family business groups. Japan’s post-war orders [transferred designated zaibatsu families’ assets](https://jahis.law.nagoya-u.ac.jp/scapindb/docs/scapin-1363) to a commission for management and liquidation, while South Korea later put its largest chaebol through a creditor-led restructuring plan.\n\nPost-war Japan’s orders called for the dissolution of two major trading companies while most restricted business components were to be reorganised. A 1947 directive called for the Mitsubishi and Mitsui trading companies to be dissolved, while most restricted Japanese business components were to be reorganised.\n\nSouth Korea’s 1998 plan put creditors in charge of restructuring and required the largest chaebol to bear their own costs. Under South Korea’s 1998 plan, major creditor institutions were to lead restructuring and the five largest chaebol were expected to bear the costs of their own reorganisation.\n\nA later comparison found that rules aimed at business groups had different effects in Japan and South Korea. A later comparison found that rules applied consistently helped end pyramidal business groups in Japan, while South Korea’s reliance mainly on corporate-governance reform had limited effect and its groups continued to dominate the economy.\n\nThe record does not yet show whether the largest groups’ rising shares across industries caused higher consumer prices across those industries. ॥" }, "entries": [ { "title": "Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)", "kind": "act", "kindLabel": "Act of Parliament", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "1890-07-02", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "America’s first federal antitrust law, approved on 2 July 1890 and named for Senator John Sherman of Ohio. It declared illegal every contract or conspiracy in restraint of trade among the states or with foreign nations, let the federal government sue to dissolve trusts, and allowed people who lost business to recover triple damages. The Supreme Court dismantled it in United States v. E. C. Knight Company in 1895, but it was used later against Standard Oil, American Tobacco and Microsoft.", "citation": "Act of July 2, 1890(Sherman Anti-Trust Act), July 2, 1890; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the court.", "url": "https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/sherman-anti-trust-act", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260918041616/https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/sherman-anti-trust-act", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1890-sherman-anti-trust-act-1890", "specimen": false }, { "title": "The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey et al. v. The United States", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "1911-05-15", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The judgment broke up the Standard Oil combination in 1911; the trust of 1882 had already come to an end. It is where the Supreme Court held that the Sherman Act of 1890 carries the common-law rule of reason, applied by a court to the facts before it. The act, the Court held, forbids contracts and combinations that amount to an unreasonable or undue restraint of trade in interstate commerce, and, under § 2, every act bringing about that result. On the record before it the Court found the oil combination unreasonable and affirmed the decree that dissolved it, with directions to modify it in part. Justice Harlan agreed in part and dissented in part. He wrote that the court’s decision, read by the language of its opinion, had upset the long-settled reading of the act and usurped the constitutional functions of the legislative branch of the Government.", "citation": "221 U.S. 1", "held": "The Court read the Sherman Act to bar only unreasonable or undue restraints of trade in interstate commerce. It held that Standard Oil’s ownership of the stock of its subsidiary companies was an unlawful combination and a monopolization. It affirmed the decree dissolving the combination, with directions to modify it in part.", "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": "United States Reports, Vol. 221", "excerpt": "we think no disinterested mind can survey the period in question without being irresistibly driven to the conclusion that the very genius for commercial development and organization which it would seem was manifested from the beginning soon begot an intent and purpose to exclude others which was frequently manifested by acts and dealings wholly inconsistent with the theory that they were made with the single conception of advancing the development of business power by usual methods, but which on the contrary necessarily involved the intent to drive others from the field and to exclude them from their right to trade and thus accomplish the mastery which was the end in view.", "url": "https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep221/usrep221001/usrep221001.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260918154450/https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep221/usrep221001/usrep221001.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1911-the-standard-oil-company-of", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It", "kind": "book", "kindLabel": "Book", "group": "Books and film", "date": "1914-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "A book by the lawyer Louis D. Brandeis, gathered from his articles in Harper’s Weekly, which ran from August 1913 to December 1914, on how a few investment bankers came to run American business. Brandeis argues that four separate trades ended up in the same few hands: selling securities, directing railroads and factories, running life insurance companies, and holding bank deposits. The most potent instrument of that power, he writes, was the interlocking directorate: boards shared between firms that competed or did business with each other. J. P. Morgan & Co. held deposits of $162,491,819.65 on November 1, 1912, he writes, and the $22,000,000,000 credited to the inner group by the Pujo Committee understates what it controls.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Louis D. Brandeis" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "The dominant element in our financial oligarchy is the investment banker. Associated banks, trust companies and life insurance companies are his tools. Controlled railroads, public service and industrial corporations are his subjects. Though properly but middlemen, these bankers bestride as masters America’s business world, so that practically no large enterprise can be undertaken successfully without their participation or approval.", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57819/pg57819-images.html", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260312124755/https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57819/pg57819-images.html", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1914-other-peoples-money-and-how", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Transfer of Zaibatsu Family Properties to Holding Company Liquidation Commission", "kind": "act", "kindLabel": "Directive", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "1946-11-26", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Allied occupation’s order directing the Imperial Japanese Government to hand the property of Japan’s designated families and family members to the Holding Company Liquidation Commission, which was to receive, hold, manage and eventually liquidate it and compensate them. It gave the government five days to widen the commission’s jurisdiction, and moved to the commission the work the Ministry of Finance had been doing in supervising those families, along with its files and records. A memo for record in the same file says it was proposed to liquidate their wealth by converting their assets into non-negotiable government bonds.", "citation": "SCAPIN-1363", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "John B. Cooley" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "The Imperial Japanese Government is directed to take such action as may be necessary, within five (5) days from the date of this Memorandum, to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Holding Company Liquidation Commission and to vest in it express authority to receive, take over, hold, manage and administer the property and assets, of whatever description, individually, jointly, or otherwise held, of designated families or family members listed in paragraph 3 below.", "url": "https://jahis.law.nagoya-u.ac.jp/scapindb/docs/scapin-1363", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251207045959/https://jahis.law.nagoya-u.ac.jp/scapindb/docs/scapin-1363", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1946-transfer-of-zaibatsu-family-properties", "specimen": false }, { "title": "The Political Adviser in Japan (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "1947-07-10", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "A communication from the United States Political Adviser in Japan to the Secretary of State, enclosing a memorandum to the Japanese Government, Scapin 1741, on the dissolution of trading companies, issued by his headquarters on 3 July 1947. The directive gave specific instructions for dissolving the Mitsubishi and Mitsui Trading Companies through the Japanese Holding Company Liquidation Commission. The chief of the headquarters’ Anti-trust and Cartels Division told an officer of the mission what was intended for the restricted companies, the so-called Zaibatsu. Their individual components would be reorganised rather than dissolved. The exceptions were the two large trading companies and a very few others, which he said were not essential to the Japanese economy and produced no goods. He felt that letting firms such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui enter foreign trade, with their foreign contacts and previous informal cartels, might direct that trade to former subsidiary companies in Japan. That would leave new businesses and small manufacturers at a disadvantage.", "citation": "894.60/7–1047", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Atcheson" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Far East, Volume VI", "excerpt": "In conversation with an officer of this Mission, the Chief of the Anti-trust and Cartels Division, Economic and Scientific Section of this Headquarters, has stated that, with the exception of the two large trading companies mentioned above and a very few others which are not essential to the Japanese economy and which produce no goods, it is intended that individual components of restricted companies (so-called “Zaibatsu” concerns) will be reorganized rather than dissolved.", "url": "https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v06/d240", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251206165547/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v06/d240", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1947-the-political-adviser-in-japan", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Report of the Monopolies Inquiry Commission 1965: Volumes I and II", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "1965-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Monopolies Inquiry Commission sat in Delhi throughout its sittings and undertook no tours, and its 1965 report counted who held the market in one product after another, then added up the holdings of whole business groups. It found a single firm or a small handful dominant in many goods. The majority concluded that business groups spreading into new industries, and the country-wise concentration that comes with it, was a necessary evil for the country’s industrial development. It still had to be watched for monopolistic and restrictive practices. R. C. Dutt recorded a note of dissent, listed in the report’s contents as the Note of Dissent by Shri R. C. Dutt.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Monopolies Inquiry Commission" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Report of the Monopolies Inquiry Commission, 1965, Volumes I and II", "excerpt": "The legislative measures we have already recommended, if adopted, will enable the Commission, which would also be required under the proposed law to keep a watchful eye on all dominant enterprises, to take suitable action where industrialists who have achieved concentration, whether country-wise or product-wise, are guilty of monopolistic or restrictive practices.", "url": "https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1965%20Dasgupta%20Committee%20-%20Monopolies%20Enquiry%20Commission%20Report.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260617163603/https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1965%20Dasgupta%20Committee%20-%20Monopolies%20Enquiry%20Commission%20Report.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1965-report-of-the-monopolies-inquiry", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Industrial Planning and Licensing Policy: Final Report", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "1967-09-14", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "R. K. Hazari, appointed an honorary consultant to the Planning Commission in July 1966 to study licensing under the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, submitted this final report on 14 September 1967. From the files of the Licensing Committee he picked out 28 houses, each of which applied for licences involving investment above ₹10 crore. Between 1959 and June 1966 they filed 1,961 applications, 21 per cent of all applications net of those deferred. The Birla group applied for such a wide range of products that, he wrote, it was to some extent legitimate to infer that it tended to pre-empt licensable capacity in many industries. Whether that kept other firms out was an open question.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "R. K. Hazari" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Volume I: Text", "excerpt": "Government should be reasonably clear in its mind at the outset regarding the industries in which competition can and should be fostered and others in which, on account of technological and economic compulsions, there is no alternative to some degree of monopoly. In the latter group of cases, it is obviously better to tolerate monopoly—though not monopolistic abuses—than to pursue ad hoc anti-monopoly licensing practices, which encourage uneconomically small plants.", "url": "https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1967%20Hazari%20Committee%20Report.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260930020546/https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1967%20Hazari%20Committee%20Report.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1967-industrial-planning-and-licensing-policy", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Report of the Industrial Licensing Policy Enquiry Committee (Main Report)", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "1969-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Industrial Licensing Policy Inquiry Committee examined how India’s industrial licensing system had worked over the decade to 1966, and whether the larger industrial houses had secured an undue advantage over other applicants in the issue of licences. Its answer was that the disproportion was real but concentrated in a few houses, not spread evenly across the group. It counted the 20 Larger Industrial Houses together with their second-tier concerns, firms it treated as tied to a house though outside its core. Together they held about 31 per cent of the private corporate sector’s paid-up capital in 1958–59. They took 41 per cent of the investment proposed in approved licence applications, and 40 per cent of the capital goods approvals given at first consideration. In one product it studied, rayon grade pulp, large houses held about 84 per cent of the licensed capacity.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Subimal Dutt", "H. K. Paranjape", "S. Mohan Kumaramangalam" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Main Report", "excerpt": "The share of Large Industrial Houses in the licensed capacity was about 84 per cent. The share of the House of Birla alone was 36 per cent and that of Sahu Jain 20 per cent. Thus, this is a clear example of disproportionately large share secured by Large Houses and especially by a single large house.", "url": "https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1969%20Dutt%20Committee%20Report.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260617165714/https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2023-07/1969%20Dutt%20Committee%20Report.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1969-report-of-the-industrial-licensing", "specimen": false }, { "title": "United States of America v. Western Electric Company, Incorporated, and American Telephone and Telegraph Company", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "1982-08-24", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The 1982 decree in the United States government’s case against AT&T and Western Electric, which ordered AT&T to transfer its local Bell operating companies out of its ownership. AT&T had to submit a plan of reorganization to the Department of Justice for its approval and then carry it out, completing the separation within 18 months after the decree took effect. On a phased schedule, the local companies then had to give every long-distance carrier and information service provider access to their networks equal in type, quality and price to what AT&T got.", "citation": "Civil Action No. S2-0192", "held": "The court ordered AT&T to separate its local Bell operating companies’ telephone business from itself within 18 months after the decree took effect, by a spin-off of stock to AT&T’s shareholders or other disposition. After that, the local companies were generally barred from long-distance calls, information services and making telephone equipment, subject to the decree’s stated exceptions. On a phased schedule, each local company had to give every long-distance carrier access equal in type, quality, and price to what AT&T and its affiliates got.", "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "After completion of the reorganization specified in section I, no BOC shall, directly or through any affiliated enterprise: 1. provide interexchange telecommunications services or information Services; manufacture or provide telecommunications products or customer premises equipment (except for provision of customer premises equipment for emergency services); or 3. provide any other product or service, except exchange telecommunications and exchange access service, that is not a natural monopoly service actually regulated by tariff.", "url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/media/1164086/dl", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260930020734/https://www.justice.gov/atr/media/1164086/dl", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1982-united-states-of-america-v", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Corporate Restructuring : Performance and Future Plan", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Press release", "group": "Reporting", "date": "1998-12-04", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Korea’s Financial Services Commission set out in December 1998 how the country’s chaebol were to be restructured. Major creditor financial institutions would take the leading role, signing capital structure improvement plans with the largest sixty-four chaebol. The biggest five, Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo, LG and SK, were expected to bear the costs their own reorganisation brought, while nonviable firms would be forced to exit promptly and viable ones supported through workout programmes.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Financial Services Commission" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Financial Services Commission", "excerpt": "The Top Five chaebol (Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo, LG, and SK) which have the capacity to absorb losses arising during the course of restructuring are expected to bear the associated costs which restructuring entails. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which are much too weak financially to take on such a burden will be supported by the creditor financial institutions with which they are affiliated.", "url": "https://fsc.go.kr/eng/pr010101/21622", "archiveUrl": null, "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-1998-corporate-restructuring-performance-and-future", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Report of the High Level Committee on Competition Policy and Law", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2000-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "In October 1999 the Department of Company Affairs set up a committee under S.V.S. Raghavan to examine the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 and say whether it should be amended or replaced. This is its report. The committee found that the 1969 Act never even named the practices it was meant to catch, from abuse of dominance to cartels and predatory pricing. It asked for the Act to be repealed, the MRTP Commission wound up, and a Competition Commission of India set up in its place.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "S.V.S. Raghavan", "Mala Banerjee", "S. Chakravarthy", "K.B. Dadiseth", "Rakesh Mohan", "Sudhir Mulji", "P.M. Narielvala", "Pallavi Shroff", "G.P. Prabhu" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Department of Company Affairs, Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Government of India", "excerpt": "In the absence of a proper competitive environment, we may find ourselves with a first class competition law but no competition. We may also end up by protecting the competitor and not the competitive system.", "url": "https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2024-12/1999_Raghavan_Report%20of%20the%20high%20level%20Committee%20on%20Competition%20Policy%20%26%20Law.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260113091513/https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2024-12/1999_Raghavan_Report%20of%20the%20high%20level%20Committee%20on%20Competition%20Policy%20%26%20Law.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2000-report-of-the-high-level", "specimen": false }, { "title": "United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2001-06-28", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed in part and reversed in part the ruling that Microsoft broke section 2 of the Sherman Act by holding on to its operating system monopoly. Windows ran on more than 95% of Intel-compatible personal computers. The court found that share protected by an applications barrier to entry: most buyers want the system with the most software, and most developers write for the system with the most users. The judges agreed that Microsoft used its Windows licences to stop computer makers promoting rival browsers. That cut those browsers’ share of users and kept developers focused on Windows. They upheld one such restriction: the ban on a maker replacing the Windows desktop automatically at start-up. They reversed the finding that Microsoft tried to monopolize the browser market, and sent the tying claim back for a fresh look. They also set aside the order to split the company, after finding that the trial judge held secret interviews with reporters and made offensive comments about Microsoft officials in public.", "citation": "No. 00-5212 (consolidated with No. 00-5213)", "held": "The court upheld in part the finding that Microsoft broke section 2 by maintaining its monopoly in Intel-compatible PC operating systems. It reversed the finding that the company tried to monopolize the browser market, and sent the tying claim back to the district court. It set aside the order that would have split the company in two.", "figure": null, "authors": [ "Edwards, Chief Judge", "Williams, Circuit Judge", "Ginsburg, Circuit Judge", "Sentelle, Circuit Judge", "Randolph, Circuit Judge", "Rogers, Circuit Judge", "Tatel, Circuit Judge" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "We may infer causation when exclusionary conduct is aimed at producers of nascent competitive technologies as well as when it is aimed at producers of established substitutes. Admittedly, in the former case there is added uncertainty, inasmuch as nascent threats are merely potential substitutes. But the underlying proof problem is the same--neither plaintiffs nor the court can confidently reconstruct a product’s hypothetical technological development in a world absent the defendant’s exclusionary conduct.", "url": "https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/504276/dl", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260917131852/https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/504276/dl", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2001-united-states-of-america-v", "specimen": false }, { "title": "The Competition Act, 2002", "kind": "act", "kindLabel": "Act", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2003-01-13", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The law that repealed the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1969 and set up the Competition Commission of India. It prohibits agreements between firms that harm competition. It prohibits an enterprise or group from abusing its dominant position, for instance by imposing unfair or discriminatory prices or conditions. And it lets the Commission regulate large mergers and acquisitions, which the Act calls combinations.", "citation": "12 of 2003", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "(3) Any agreement entered into between enterprises or associations of enterprises or persons or associations of persons or between any person and enterprise or practice carried on, or decision taken by, any association of enterprises or association of persons, including cartels, engaged in identical or similar trade of goods or provision of services, which— (a) directly or indirectly determines purchase or sale prices; (b) limits or controls production, supply, markets, technical development, investment or provision of services; (c) shares the market or source of production or provision of services by way of allocation of geographical area of market, or type of goods or services, or number of customers in the market or any other similar way; (d) directly or indirectly results in bid rigging or collusive bidding, shall be presumed to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition:", "url": "https://www.cci.gov.in/images/legalframeworkact/en/the-competition-act-20021652103427.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260916211028/https://www.cci.gov.in/images/legalframeworkact/en/the-competition-act-20021652103427.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2003-the-competition-act-2002", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Business Groups in Emerging Markets: Paragons or Parasites?", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Working paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2005-08-19", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School and Yishay Yafeh of Hebrew University survey the research on the family-run, multi-industry groups that dominate most emerging markets. They ask whether the groups are ‘paragons’ or ‘parasites.’ Their conclusion is that no verdict is possible yet: the studies used to condemn groups, on tunneling and rent-seeking, are less conclusive than they are usually read to be. On whether groups hold market power, they can offer only a conjecture.", "citation": "No. 2005-1", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Tarun Khanna", "Yishay P. Yafeh" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "CEI Working Paper Series", "excerpt": "Market power is more plausible in South Korea or in South Africa, where four or five leading groups account for the vast majority of market capitalization, than in India or Brazil, where the top groups account for less than 10 percent. But as of now, this is merely a conjecture.", "url": "https://cei.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/English/pdf/wp2005-1.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240222194653/https://cei.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/English/pdf/wp2005-1.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2005-business-groups-in-emerging-markets", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Director General (Investigation and Registration) v. Cement Manufacturers' Association", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, New Delhi judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2007-12-20", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "In 1990 the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission issued a notice of enquiry against the Cement Manufacturers’ Association and 44 cement producers. The complaint was that they fixed the price of cement in an arbitrary and unjustified manner. Prices of several manufacturers in the same region were uniform, though the cost of production of different units differed. The bench did not decide the case until December 2007, when it held that the association had been the common platform through which the firms moved prices together, and ordered them to stop. It said the guilt would pass to successor companies if there was a change in management since the start of the enquiry.", "citation": "Restrictive Trade Practices Enquiry No. 99 of 1990", "held": "The commission found the respondents guilty of restrictive trade practices under Section 33(1)(d), except three that had stopped operating before the period it examined. It ordered them not to fix prices in concert, directly or indirectly, whether through the Cement Manufacturers’ Association or otherwise.", "figure": null, "authors": [ "M.M.K. Sardana" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "In the present case, we have found direct as well as indirect evidence of concert. The existence of a common platform in the form of respondent No. which frequently reviews the price-situation is a strong pointer towards existence of a cartel. Admittedly, respondent No. has been fixing prices during the control regime. The same apparatus continues even now without any change. In this scenario, the simultaneous and frequent rise in prices by the respondents, although within a narrow band, would clearly indicate that the respondents acted in a concert.", "url": "https://baionline.in/public/frontend/pdf/important_information/MRTP1.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250809124639/https://www.baionline.in/public/frontend/pdf/important_information/MRTP1.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2007-director-general-investigation-and-registration", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Prices, Markups and Trade Reform", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2016-02-01", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The paper behind this column looked at how the prices and markups of Indian firms moved after the tariff cuts India made in the early 1990s. When firms can charge above their costs, the pro-competitive channel says cheaper imports should force markups down and prices closer to costs. The source notes that this channel is absent from traditional trade models, which assume either perfect competition or markups that do not respond to policy. Here competition did push markups down on its own, but the tariff cuts also made imported inputs cheaper, and that effect lifted markups by more. On net markups rose, and prices fell by much less than costs.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Jan De Loecker", "Penny Goldberg", "Amit Khandelwal", "Nina Pavcnik" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Microeconomic Insights", "excerpt": "The answer is surprising: we find that markups actually increased as a result of the tariff reductions. Prices still declined due to the cost reduction effect, but the prices facing consumers declined by much less than one would have expected in the absence of market power.", "url": "https://microeconomicinsights.org/prices-markups-and-trade-reform/", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260511053015/https://microeconomicinsights.org/prices-markups-and-trade-reform/", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2016-prices-markups-and-trade-reform", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2016-03-01", "datePrecision": "month", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "An Econometrica paper that measures what India’s tariff cuts did to factory-gate prices, marginal costs and markups, using product-level price and quantity data from Prowess, the CMIE’s firm database. Prices fell 18.1 percent and marginal costs 30.7 percent over 1989 to 1997, while markups rose 12.6 percent: firms kept much of the saving from cheaper imported inputs instead of passing it to buyers. It matters to this Long View because the markups it estimates vary widely across firms and products, and because it tests, and finds nothing distinctive about, firms that belong to Indian business groups.", "citation": "DOI: 10.3982/ECTA11042", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Jan De Loecker", "Pinelopi K. Goldberg", "Amit K. Khandelwal", "Nina Pavcnik" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Econometrica, Vol. 84, No. 2", "excerpt": "Not surprisingly, we find that trade liberalization lowers factory-gate prices and that output tariff declines have the expected pro-competitive effects. However, the price declines are small relative to the declines in marginal costs, which fall predominantly because of the input tariff liberalization. The reason for this incomplete cost pass-through to prices is that firms offset their reductions in marginal costs by raising markups.", "url": "https://akhandelwal8.github.io/files/ecma_PMTR/PMTR.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240518052757/https://akhandelwal8.github.io/files/ecma_PMTR/PMTR.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2016-prices-markups-and-trade-reform", "specimen": false }, { "title": "In Re: Builders Association of India", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2016-08-31", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Commission decided this case twice. It found the cement makers in contravention in June 2012, and the appellate tribunal set that order aside in December 2015. This fresh order followed hearings in January 2016. It found no abuse of dominance, since no single firm or group was in a position to operate independent of competitive forces. But at paragraph 286 it held that the cement companies had used the Cement Manufacturers’ Association as a platform to share details of prices, capacity utilisation, production and dispatch. That, it held, restricted production and supply, and the companies had acted in concert to fix prices. The DG’s investigation report described the cement industry as oligopolistic, with the Holcim group controlling ACC and Ambuja and the Birla group controlling UltraTech. The top three companies held about 40% of the total market share.", "citation": "Case No. 29 of 2010", "held": "The Commission found no abuse of dominance under Section 4, because no single firm or group was in a position to operate independent of competitive forces. At paragraph 286 it held that the cement companies had used the Cement Manufacturers’ Association to share details of prices, capacity utilisation, production and dispatch. That restricted production and supply, contrary to Section 3(1) read with Section 3(3)(b). And they had acted in concert to fix prices, contrary to Section 3(1) read with Section 3(3)(a).", "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "As regards the prevailing market structure in the cement industry, the DG has submitted that there are two groups comprising of three companies who have pan-India presence. The Holcim Group which controls ACC Ltd. and Ambuja Cements Ltd. and the Birla Group which controls UltraTech Cements Ltd.. The top three companies viz. ACC Ltd., Ambuja Cements Ltd. and UltraTech Cement Ltd. have about 40% of the total market share.", "url": "https://cci.gov.in/images/whatsnew/en/final-order-291652520915.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260930020707/https://cci.gov.in/images/whatsnew/en/final-order-291652520915.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2016-in-re-builders-association-of", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2017-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Lina M. Khan’s note in the Yale Law Journal argues that American antitrust lost the means to see a firm like Amazon once it took up the Chicago school’s test. That test measures competition by short-run prices and treats market power as harmless until prices rise. She follows that test through the law on predatory pricing and vertical integration, and sets out Amazon’s strategy of sustained losses and expansion across many lines of business. She offers two answers: restore a test built on competitive process and market structure, or regulate dominant platforms as common carriers. It is the American strand of the argument over concentrated business power that this Long View follows.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Lina M. Khan" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 126, p. 710", "excerpt": "Due to a change in legal thinking and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, antitrust law now assesses competition largely with an eye to the short-term interests of consumers, not producers or the health of the market as a whole; antitrust doctrine views low consumer prices, alone, to be evidence of sound competition. … It is as if Bezos charted the company’s growth by first drawing a map of antitrust laws, and then devising routes to smoothly bypass them.", "url": "https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260908064250/https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2017-amazons-antitrust-paradox", "specimen": false }, { "title": "In Re: Bharti Airtel Limited", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2017-06-09", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "On 9 June 2017 the Competition Commission of India closed Bharti Airtel’s complaint against Reliance Jio Infocomm and its parent, Reliance Industries, without ordering an investigation. Airtel called Jio’s free voice and data offers, running since September 2016, predatory pricing, and said Reliance’s money was paying for it. The Commission found Jio was not dominant: it held 6.4 per cent of wireless subscribers, and never more than 7 per cent in any circle. It held that an entrant’s short-term strategy of attractive offers to penetrate the market cannot be considered anti-competitive in nature. Without dominance, it noted, the question of examining the alleged abuse did not arise.", "citation": "Case No. 3 of 2017", "held": "The Commission found no prima facie case that Reliance Jio or Reliance Industries broke Sections 3 or 4 of the Competition Act, and closed the complaint.", "figure": null, "authors": [ "Devender Kumar Sikri", "S. L. Bunker", "Sudhir Mital", "Augustine Peter", "U. C. Nahta", "Justice G. P. Mittal" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "However, the Informant has not demonstrated reduction of competition or elimination of any competitor nor has any intent to that effect is demonstrated. The Commission notes that providing free services cannot by itself raise competition concerns unless the same is offered by a dominant enterprise and shown to be tainted with an anti-competitive objective of excluding competition/ competitors, which does not seem to be the case in the instant matter as the relevant market is characterised by the presence of entrenched players with sustained business presence and financial strength.", "url": "https://www.cci.gov.in/images/antitrustorder/en/0320171652338122.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260306050434/https://www.cci.gov.in/images/antitrustorder/en/0320171652338122.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2017-in-re-bharti-airtel-limited", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Ambuja Cements Limited v. Competition Commission of India & Ors.", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Judgment", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2018-07-25", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "India’s competition tribunal upheld the finding that 11 cement companies and their association ran a cartel, and dismissed their appeals. The companies argued that parallel prices were ordinary in a commodity where everyone can see everyone’s prices, and that no agreement had been shown. The Tribunal answered that the association’s own minutes, and its collection and circulation of each member’s prices, production and dispatches, proved a meeting of minds. It added that the market had been looked at state by state and region by region. A cartel, it held, need be proved only on a balance of probabilities, and the minimum penalty stood.", "citation": "TA(AT) (Compt) No. 22 of 2017", "held": "The Tribunal dismissed the appeals of the cement companies and their association. It agreed that they had fixed prices and limited supply in breach of Section 3(3)(a) and 3(3)(b) of the Competition Act, 2002, and left the penalty, already the minimum, undisturbed.", "figure": null, "authors": [ "Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya", "Balvinder Singh" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "They were openly circulating the sale price of cement of each of the Cement Companies, though they were competitors. The Government of India if called for details of the Companies, the respective companies could have sent it themselves in a sealed cover. But, it was sent to the competitors who were discussing not only the sale price of the cement but also the order issued by one of the company from Government of U.P. From the aforesaid facts based on evidence, there will be one conclusion that there was meeting of minds between the Appellants with regard to the fixation of sale price of cement and for regulating its supply and production.", "url": "https://nclat.nic.in/sites/default/files/migration/upload/9924885005c514c82465bf.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260208155756/https://nclat.nic.in/sites/default/files/migration/upload/9924885005c514c82465bf.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2018-ambuja-cements-limited-v-competition", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Finance Ministry, NITI Aayog guidelines ignored in airport privatisation", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2019-07-27", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Hindu’s account, built on the record of the 85th PPP Appraisal Committee, of how the Centre cleared the leasing of airports owned by the Airports Authority of India. The Finance Ministry’s Department of Economic Affairs asked for a cap on the number of airports a single bidder could take, and NITI Aayog wanted prior operation and management experience. The committee cited an Empowered Group of Secretaries decision and set both aside. Three days after that meeting the Airports Authority of India floated its tender, and Adani Enterprises Limited was declared the highest bidder for all six airports, with the suggestions of the government’s own advisers on the file.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Jagriti Chandra" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Hindu", "excerpt": "In its note, the DEA noted unequivocally, “the six airport projects are highly capital intensive projects, hence it is suggested to incorporate the clause that no more than two Airports will be awarded to the same bidder duly factoring the high financial risk and performance issues. Awarding them to different companies would also facilitate yardstick competition.”", "url": "https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/finance-ministry-niti-aayog-guidelines-ignored-in-airport-privatisation/article28733682.ece", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250323001844/https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/finance-ministry-niti-aayog-guidelines-ignored-in-airport-privatisation/article28733682.ece", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2019-finance-ministry-niti-aayog-guidelines", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Pro-Business versus Pro-Crony", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Chapter of the Economic Survey", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2020-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Economic Survey for 2019–20 gave a chapter to the difference between policy that makes firms compete and policy that favours the well connected, and used the Sensex as its measure of churn. A firm entering the index in 1986 could have expected sixty years on it; the survey puts the expected stay now at twelve. It reports that an index of firms with political connections beat the market by 7 per cent a year from 2007 to 2010, then underperformed by 7.5 per cent from 2011.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Government of India" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Economic Survey 2019-20, Volume 1", "excerpt": "Despite impressive progress in enabling competitive markets, pro-crony has destroyed value in the economy. For example, an equity index of connected firms significantly outperformed the market by 7 per cent a year from 2007 to 2010, reflecting abnormal profits extracted at common citizens’ expense. In contrast, the index underperforms the market by 7.5 per cent from 2011, reflecting the inefficiency and value destruction inherent in such firms.", "url": "https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/budget2020-21/economicsurvey/doc/vol1chapter/echap03_vol1.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20220805210036/https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/budget2020-21/economicsurvey/doc/vol1chapter/echap03_vol1.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2020-pro-business-versus-pro-crony", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Understanding India’s Economic Slowdown", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2020-01-20", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "R Nagaraj’s I G Patel Memorial Lecture, published in The India Forum, traces where the credit of the 2000s boom went. Bank credit to the private corporate sector grew at an unprecedented pace and a large share reached big business and politically connected firms; when the boom broke, their unpaid loans became the banks’ bad debts. Nagaraj argues the decade of distress that followed was made at home by policy, and that a government which saw crony capitalism and weak bank screening missed a collapse in demand that public investment could have answered.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "R Nagaraj" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The India Forum", "excerpt": "The ‘Dream Run’ was also a debt-led growth with bank credit to the private corporate sector (PCS) burgeoning at an unprecedented pace; a large share accrued to big business and politically connected firms. These resources went into infrastructure projects such as roads, ports, coal, and thermal power plants (Nagaraj, 2013).", "url": "https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/understanding-india-s-economic-slowdown", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260606104957/https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/understanding-india-s-economic-slowdown", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2020-understanding-indias-economic-slowdown", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Regulatory Measures to Dismantle Pyramidal Business Groups: Evidence from the United States, Japan, Korea and Israel", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2020-10-06", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Assaf Hamdani, Konstantin Kosenko and Yishay Yafeh compare how the United States, Japan, Korea and Israel each went after the large corporate entities they call pyramidal business groups, Korea’s chaebol among them. Korea tried several kinds of rules, then settled on corporate governance reform, and its groups still dominate the economy. Where governments wrote rules aimed at the pyramids and applied them consistently over years, with politics on their side, the groups went.", "citation": "DP15342", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Assaf Hamdani", "Konstantin Kosenko", "Yishay Yafeh" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "CEPR Discussion Papers", "excerpt": "Korea, after experimenting with variety of regulatory measures, chose to rely primarily on corporate governance-focused reforms to curb the influence of the chaebol, but with limited effects; groups continue to dominate the Korean economy. Our findings point to the importance of specifically-designed regulatory tools, applied consistently over time, against the backdrop of a pro-reform political climate.", "url": "https://cepr.org/publications/DP15342", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240625080114/https://cepr.org/publications/dp15342", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2020-regulatory-measures-to-dismantle-pyramidal", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Market Study on the Telecom Sector in India: Key Findings and Observations", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2021-01-22", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Competition Commission of India began this study of the telecom market in January 2020 and published its key findings in January 2021, with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) as implementation partner. It describes a market that consolidated until Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea owned almost 88.4 per cent of it, and where average industry revenue fell in every year from 2016–17 to 2018–19. When the incumbents asked the regulator to fix a floor price, the Commission advised it to keep tariff forbearance.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Competition Commission of India" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Competition Commission of India", "excerpt": "The prevailing market structure validates the empirical finding expressed as the rule of three, which predicts that mature markets normally support three main competitors, others who survive, are limited to the fringes or a niche. The three major private sector operators, namely Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea own almost 88.4 per cent of the market. As of April 2020, Reliance Jio has the highest market share with respect to subscribers (33.3 per cent).", "url": "https://www.cci.gov.in/images/whatsnew/en/market-study-on-the-telecom-sector-in-india1652177923.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260623145808/https://www.cci.gov.in/images/whatsnew/en/market-study-on-the-telecom-sector-in-india1652177923.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2021-market-study-on-the-telecom", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Mr. Umar Javeed, Ms. Sukarma Thapar and Mr. Aaqib Javeed v. Google LLC and Google India Private Limited", "kind": "judgment", "kindLabel": "Order", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2022-10-20", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Competition Commission’s order on a complaint by three consumers of Android phones against Google. The Commission found that a phone maker wanting to preload even Google’s Play Store had to sign agreements committing it to preinstall Google’s full suite of apps. Through this tying, it found, Google used Android to cement the dominance of its search engine. The Commission’s own chart put Android at 98.50% of smartphone and tablet shipments in India at the end of 2018.", "citation": "Case No. 39 of 2018", "held": "The Director General’s investigation found Google dominant in the five relevant markets it examined. The Commission held that the anti-fragmentation agreement, which stops handset makers developing competing versions of Android, is a covenant not to compete. Together with the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement, it eliminates a potential distribution channel for rival app developers and restricts competition in the operating system and general search markets.", "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "Through the tying arrangement, Google has used Android as a vehicle, especially, to cement the dominance of its search engine. Google’s strategy rests on the reach, scale and market power of Android, which allows Google to have control over a vast majority of smart mobile devices that serve as key gateways to the internet. Keeping Android OS open and ‘free’ of monetary consideration is thus in as much Google’s interest as it claims it to be for the OEMs and users. Combined with the power of Android is the dominance that Google enjoys over Play Store which has attained unparalleled market position benefitting from huge indirect network effects, resulting in an overwhelming dependence of users, app developers and consequently of the OEMs. Its gatekeeper position in the Android mobile ecosystem thus makes Google well placed to leverage its power to protect and further enhance its dominance in online search by making it difficult for rival search service providers to enter and compete effectively in the mobile search space. The well-regarded benefits of the open-source system of Android cannot legitimize an exclusionary conduct that causes harm to competition in any specific area/markets.", "url": "https://www.cci.gov.in/images/antitrustorder/en/order1666344260.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250531164046/https://www.cci.gov.in/images/antitrustorder/en/order1666344260.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2022-mr-umar-javeed-ms-sukarma", "specimen": false }, { "title": "India at 75: Replete with Contradictions, Brimming with Opportunities, Saddled with Challenges", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research", "group": "Entry", "date": "2023-03-30", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Viral Acharya wrote this paper for the Spring 2023 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity conference, and the part that belongs in this Long View is his count of how concentrated Indian industry has become. With Rahul Singh Chauhan, working from CMIE’s Prowess Dx database, he finds the largest non-financial groups losing ground after the 1991 reforms and then gaining from 2015. By 2021 the Big-5 of Reliance, Tata, Aditya Birla, Adani and Bharti Telecom held nearly 18% of non-financial sector assets, while the next five groups fell under 9%. He links that market power to markups back at their 1990s level and to higher wholesale price inflation, and proposes dismantling the largest conglomerates.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Viral V Acharya" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Brookings Papers on Economic Activity", "excerpt": "In particular, their share in total assets of the non-financial sectors rose from 10% in 1991 to nearly 18% in 2021, whereas the share of the next big five (Big 6-10) business groups fell from 18% in 1992 to less than 9%. In other words, Big-5 grew not just at the expense of the smallest firms, but also of the next largest firms.", "url": "https://w4.stern.nyu.edu/sternfin/vacharya/public_html/pdfs/Brookings%20India%20piece%20Acharya%20March%202023%20v15.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260903001201/https://w4.stern.nyu.edu/sternfin/vacharya/public_html/pdfs/Brookings%20India%20piece%20Acharya%20March%202023%20v15.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2023-india-at-75-replete-with", "specimen": false }, { "title": "The Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023", "kind": "act", "kindLabel": "Act", "group": "Law and courts", "date": "2023-04-11", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Parliament passed this Act to amend the Competition Act, 2002, and it reaches combination thresholds, cartel penalties and investigation powers, and adds settlement and commitment provisions. Once it is brought into force, a new test applies to deals for control, shares, voting rights or assets of an enterprise, and to mergers. Such a deal will count as a combination if it is worth more than rupees two thousand crore and the target has substantial business operations in India. For the purposes of section 5, a group means two or more enterprises where one can exercise twenty-six per cent of the voting rights in the other, appoint more than half its board, or control its management or affairs. Failing to notify a deal can cost up to one per cent of the total turnover or assets or the deal value, whichever is higher. Each member of a cartel faces up to three times its profit or ten per cent of its turnover or income for each year the agreement ran, whichever is higher. A firm under inquiry over a vertical agreement, one between firms at different stages of a supply chain, or over abuse of dominance, may apply to settle on payment of an amount or offer commitments, which the Commission may accept. No appeal lies against either order.", "citation": "No. 9 of 2023", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section 1", "excerpt": "(d) value of any transaction, in connection with acquisition of any control, shares, voting rights or assets of an enterprise, merger or amalgamation exceeds rupees two thousand crore: Provided that the enterprise which is being acquired, taken control of, merged or amalgamated has such substantial business operations in India as may be specified by regulations.", "url": "https://www.cci.gov.in/images/legalframeworkact/en/the-competition-amendment-act-20231681363446.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260917065442/https://www.cci.gov.in/images/legalframeworkact/en/the-competition-amendment-act-20231681363446.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2023-the-competition-amendment-act-2023", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Ecowrap: Factually Incorrect to Conjecture That Industrial Concentration Power Dictates Pricing Capacity of Firms in India: Corporate Ecosystem in India Thrives on Coexistence of Large & Small Players", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research", "group": "Entry", "date": "2023-04-23", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "SBI Research tested the claim that the pricing power of a few big firms keeps India’s core inflation high, and rejected it. An index that reweights the consumer price index by how concentrated each sector is stayed below core CPI from January 2015, rising above it from January to November 2020 and also further during the pandemic, as supply disruptions weighed heavily. The bank’s model traced general inflation to food: a 1% increase in food CPI raised general CPI by 0.6% between April 2014 and February 2023. Its economists also found Indian companies outlast those elsewhere, with nearly 45% trading for more than 20 years.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Soumya Kanti Ghosh" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Ecowrap, Issue No. 04, FY23", "excerpt": "The resultant “CPI Concentration Index” results show that estimated Concentration CPI is consistently less than the Core CPI since January’15. … The findings in fact suggest that the increase in prices during the pandemic was more on account of supply chain and logistical disruptions caused by the pandemic and after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine rather than firms increasing prices because of higher pricing power.", "url": "https://sbi.bank.in/documents/13958/36530824/240423-Ecowrap_20230423.pdf/fa4690e0-ddf9-2cb6-59af-dcbd33e2fbd2?t=1682313253274", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260930020523/https://sbi.bank.in/documents/13958/36530824/240423-Ecowrap_20230423.pdf/fa4690e0-ddf9-2cb6-59af-dcbd33e2fbd2?t=1682313253274", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2023-ecowrap-factually-incorrect-to-conjecture", "specimen": false }, { "title": "2023 Merger Guidelines", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2023-12-18", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission issued these guidelines in December 2023 to set out how they choose which mergers to challenge under the Sherman, Clayton and FTC Acts. They are the American half of the question this Long View follows: how concentrated a market may get before the law steps in. They answer it with a hard threshold. A deal that leaves a market above 1,800 on the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, and lifts it by more than 100 points, is presumed unlawful unless the parties rebut it. The same document lets the agencies weigh a firm’s whole run of takeovers as one strategy, and says the economies a merger promises cannot excuse it.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission", "excerpt": "Tacit coordination can lessen competition even when it does not rise to the level of an agreement and would not itself violate the law. For example, in a concentrated market a firm may forego or soften an aggressive competitive action because it anticipates rivals responding in kind. This harmful behavior is more common the more concentrated markets become, as it is easier to predict the reactions of rivals when there are fewer of them.", "url": "https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-12/2023%20Merger%20Guidelines.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260918033030/https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-12/2023%20Merger%20Guidelines.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2023-2023-merger-guidelines", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Parliamentary panel suggests route-specific capping of airfares", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2024-02-09", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "A standing committee of Parliament has told the government that airlines cannot be left to police their own ticket prices, and it wants a route-by-route ceiling on fares plus a separate body with quasi-judicial powers to control what carriers charge. The report says fares are set by revenue management and the drive to maximise shareholder value, and that self regulation by the airlines has not worked. It belongs here as a working example of how the argument over market power plays out in one industry.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "PTI" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Indian Express", "excerpt": "In the report, the panel said it has come across various instances where there has been abnormal increase in airfares especially during festivals or holidays, and is of the opinion that self regulation by airlines has not been effective and also recommended that a mechanism may be evolved whereby DGCA is empowered to regulate air tariffs.", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/india/parliamentary-panel-route-specific-capping-airfares-9152600/", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240315132229/https://indianexpress.com/article/india/parliamentary-panel-route-specific-capping-airfares-9152600/", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2024-parliamentary-panel-suggests-route-specific", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Why tariff hikes by Airtel, Jio,Vi were inevitable", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2024-06-28", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "This Indian Express report records Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea announcing tariff rises within hours of each other in June 2024. It also gives the industry’s own case for them: that what a subscriber pays each month is too low for the business to stay healthy. Jio, which a JP Morgan note calls the sector’s price setter, led the round this time, and the bank reads that as a statement of intent that its focus has shifted from share gains to monetisation.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Soumyarendra Barik" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Indian Express", "excerpt": "Jio premiumised 5G access by increasing the threshold for unlimited 5G data to 2GB/day plans from 1.5GB/day plans that effectively drives a 46 per cent increase in tariffs for 5G users, 2x the overall hikes driving 5G monetisation", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-economics/tariff-hikes-by-bharti-airtel-reliance-jio-inevitable-arpu-9420265/", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260609070403/https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-economics/tariff-hikes-by-bharti-airtel-reliance-jio-inevitable-arpu-9420265/", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2024-why-tariff-hikes-by-airtel", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Anti-big, Anti-global? India's Competition Law and Policy for Dominant Enterprises", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research paper", "group": "Entry", "date": "2024-07-01", "datePrecision": "month", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "A Mercatus research paper on India’s competition law, arguing that the Competition Act, 2002 and the Competition Commission of India carry an anti-big bias inherited from the MRTP Act, 1969, and often equate size with wrongdoing. It records that the five largest conglomerates (Reliance, Tata, Aditya Birla, Adani and Bharti Telecom) raised their share of assets in more than 40 major nonfinancial sectors from 10 percent in 1991 to 18 percent in 2021. Over the same years the next five biggest groups fell from 18 percent in 1992 to less than 9 percent in 2021. It asks that Section 4 be amended so harm to competition and consumers must be shown, and that Section 28, which lets the CCI break up firms, be dropped.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Shreyas Narla" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Mercatus Research", "excerpt": "The big five conglomerates in India—Reliance (Mukesh Ambani) Group, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Adani Group, and Bharti Telecom—now have a finger in every pie, from metals and minerals to retail and telecommunications. … Their share in total assets of these sectors grew from 10 percent in 1991 to 18 percent in 2021. And the share of the next five biggest groups shrank from 18 percent in 1992 to less than 9 percent in 2021.", "url": "https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2024-07/4971_Narla_Ati-Big_Anti_Global_MR_v1_compressed.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260216044651/https://the1991project.com/sites/default/files/2024-07/4971_Narla_Ati-Big_Anti_Global_MR_v1_compressed.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2024-anti-big-anti-global-indias", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Tariff hike by telecom companies complies with the prescribed regulatory framework: DoT", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "News report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2024-07-06", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Congress attacked last week’s mobile tariff hikes as an extra burden on customers, and the Ministry of Communication answered the next day. In a press statement, the Department of Telecommunications said the increases were made under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997, which gives TRAI the power to set telecom rates. For the past two decades TRAI has determined mobile rates under forbearance. The government also said that with three private players and one public sector player, the mobile services market operates under the forces of demand and supply, and pointed to heavy 5G spending by some of the service providers.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Rakesh Kumar" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The New Indian Express", "excerpt": "The DoT also highlighted that the tariff hike was implemented in accordance with the provisions of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act 1997, which empowers TRAI as an independent regulator to set telecom service rates in the country. It noted that for the past two decades, mobile service rates have been determined under forbearance by TRAI.", "url": "https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2024/Jul/06/tariff-hike-by-telecom-companies-complies-with-the-prescribed-regulatory-framework-dot", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260508205530/https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2024/Jul/06/tariff-hike-by-telecom-companies-complies-with-the-prescribed-regulatory-framework-dot", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2024-tariff-hike-by-telecom-companies", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Passengers Satisfaction at Adani-operated Airport", "kind": "data", "kindLabel": "Parliamentary answer", "group": "Data", "date": "2025-08-04", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "Seven airports of the Airports Authority of India (Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram) are now operated and managed by subsidiaries of Adani Airports Holdings, the government told the Rajya Sabha on 4 August 2025. Private airports averaged 4.96 out of five in the 2024 Airport Service Quality survey run by Airport Council International; AAI’s own airports averaged 4.81. The user development fee is typically higher at leased and PPP airports, the reply says, because the capital spending on infrastructure there is far larger than at AAI’s airports.", "citation": "Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1627", "held": null, "figure": { "value": "4.96", "unit": "average score out of five for private-operated airports in the 2024 Airport Service Quality survey", "source": "Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Survey by Airport Council International, as cited in the reply to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1627", "verify": false }, "authors": [ "Murlidhar Mohol" ], "photographers": [], "publication": null, "excerpt": "Currently, seven airports of AAI viz. Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram are being operated and managed by subsidiaries of Adani Airports Holdings Ltd (AAHL). … The Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) infusion for infrastructure upgradation at JV/PPP/Leased airport is substantially higher in comparison to AAI Airports. Hence, UDF levied at JV/PPP/Leased airports is typically higher due to incurrence of substantially more CAPEX.", "url": "https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/268/AU1627_1JpsMN.pdf?source=pqars", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260105081605/https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/268/AU1627_1JpsMN.pdf?source=pqars", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2025-passengers-satisfaction-at-adani-operated", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Business Groups, Concentration and Market Power in India", "kind": "research", "kindLabel": "Research", "group": "Entry", "date": "2026-01-01", "datePrecision": "year", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The top 25 family business groups ended two decades of liberalisation with a larger share of India’s economy than they began it: their revenues rose from 11 to 15 percent of GDP between 2001 and 2020. Working from CMIE Prowess records on nearly 500,000 observations, Simon Commander, Saul Estrin, Naveen Joseph Thomas and Varun Lingineni measure concentration industry by industry. They find that the fall in concentration across India came mainly from the shrinking state sector, while a block of industries stayed highly concentrated. For the largest groups, the ratio of sales to variable costs turned up after 2013, a rise of 16 percent by 2020.", "citation": "https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhag026", "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Simon Commander", "Saul Estrin", "Naveen Joseph Thomas", "Varun Lingineni" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The World Bank Economic Review", "excerpt": "Despite continuing market liberalization since 2000 and some evidence of declining concentration as a result, business groups –especially family-owned ones—have retained a leading place in the Indian economy. Explicitly encouraged and favored by public policy, particularly before 1990, these groups have very successfully entrenched themselves. The top 25 FBGs’ revenues accounted for > 15 percent of GDP in 2020. Further, there has been limited turnover in their ranks, even in the face of market liberalization.", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhag026", "archiveUrl": null, "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2026-business-groups-concentration-and-market", "specimen": false }, { "title": "IndiGo and Air India Hold 91% of Domestic Aviation Market, Govt Tells Parliament", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Report", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2026-03-31", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The civil aviation ministry’s written reply to a Rajya Sabha question, reported here, sets out the government’s own count of how few airlines sell most domestic seats. It lists the market share held by each major and regional carrier, the flights IndiGo cancelled during its December 2025 meltdown, the passengers affected and the compensation the minister says it has paid. The crisis followed new duty-time rules that IndiGo was accused of failing to plan for adequately. For the December 3 to 5 cancellations the airline cited crew shortages, though for the month’s disruptions it said it could not pinpoint the exact cause.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "The Wire Staff" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Wire", "excerpt": "In a written reply to Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sagarika Ghose in the Rajya Sabha, minister of state for civil aviation Murlidhar Mohol said that Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data for 2025 shows IndiGo holds a nearly 64% market share, and the Air India Group holds 27%. “Together, these two airlines hold 91% of the domestic market,” Mohol said in the reply.", "url": "https://m.thewire.in/article/travel/indigo-and-air-india-hold-91-of-domestic-aviation-market-govt-tells-parliament", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260419112356/https://m.thewire.in/article/travel/indigo-and-air-india-hold-91-of-domestic-aviation-market-govt-tells-parliament", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2026-indigo-and-air-india-hold", "specimen": false }, { "title": "Results presentation – Q4 & FY26", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Earnings presentation", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2026-04-30", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The results deck Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited took to investors for the quarter and year ended March 2026. It maps the reach of the company’s ports business: 653 million tonnes of port capacity, 136 marine vessels, 12 multi-modal logistics parks and 3.1 million sq ft of warehouses. It gives the company’s own figures for its market share: 27.1% of all cargo handled in India and 45.5% of its container traffic.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "Earnings presentation", "excerpt": "In the last decade, APSEZ domestic port volume growth was ~2x industry growth … APSEZ targets 850 MMT domestic cargo volume by 2030", "url": "https://www.adaniports.com/-/media/project/ports/investor/investor-downloads/operational-highlights/q4-fy26-v1.pdf", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260614231250/https://www.adaniports.com/-/media/project/ports/investor/investor-downloads/operational-highlights/q4-fy26-v1.pdf", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2026-results-presentation-q4-fy26", "specimen": false }, { "title": "In 2020, India's Big Five Family Businesses Held Over 60% of Top 25 FBGs' Revenues Combined: Study", "kind": "report", "kindLabel": "Reporting", "group": "Reporting", "date": "2026-08-16", "datePrecision": "day", "added": "2026-09-30", "note": "The Wire reports on a study in the World Bank Economic Review, ‘Business Groups, Concentration and Market Power in India’, on how far India’s biggest family business groups dominate corporate income. The study found that market concentration fell after liberalisation as the public sector shrank, yet the large groups kept their hold and spread into new sectors, and their mark-ups rose sharply after slipping a little between 2000 and 2013.", "citation": null, "held": null, "figure": null, "authors": [ "The Wire Staff" ], "photographers": [], "publication": "The Wire", "excerpt": "The study noted that the concentration in the market has reduced as competitiveness increased after liberalisation. However, it did not prevent these family businesses from dominating the market. … On the concentration of market power, the authors crucially noted, while the FBGs’ mark-ups indicate these declined marginally between 2000 and 2013, it “then rose sharply, a change strongly correlated with increases in concentration at NIC-3 level”.", "url": "https://m.thewire.in/article/business/indias-big-five-family-business-goups-study/amp", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260930020459/https://m.thewire.in/article/business/indias-big-five-family-business-goups-study/amp", "anchor": "/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/#e-2026-in-2020-indias-big-five", "specimen": false } ], "related": [ 3 ] }