Every revision of “Where things stand”

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.

Despite 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.

The 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.

Five named conglomerates increased their hold over non-financial assets. 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%.

The 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.

Family 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.

Acharya 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.

SBI Research’s measure of concentration-weighted consumer prices stayed below core inflation for most of the period 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.

Tariff cuts lowered costs faster than prices, 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.

In 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.

The 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.

Two 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 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%.

A 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.

Adani 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.

The 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.

Adani Ports said it handled 27.1% of all cargo in India and 45.5% of the country’s container traffic in FY26.

The cement case found that companies could lack dominance as a single firm or group and still act together to restrict supply and fix prices. 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.

India’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 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.

Two 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%.

India’s competition law moved from the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1969 to the Competition Act of 2002, 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.

The 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 of Standard Oil’s combination.

Brandeis 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.

Lina 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, or for dominant platforms to be regulated as common carriers.

The 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.

Japan and South Korea used state action to address large family business groups. Japan’s post-war orders transferred designated zaibatsu families’ assets to a commission for management and liquidation, while South Korea later put its largest chaebol through a creditor-led restructuring plan.

Post-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.

South 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.

A 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.

The record does not yet show whether the largest groups’ rising shares across industries caused higher consumer prices across those industries.॥