Duopoly

•In a duopoly, two competing businesses control the majority of the market sector for a particular product or service they provide. A business can be part of a duopoly even if it provides other services that do not fall into the market sector in question. For example, Amazon is a part of the duopoly in the e-book market but is not associated with a duopoly in its other product sectors, such as computer hardware.
Boeing and Airbus have been called a duopoly for their command of the large passenger airplane market. Similarly, Amazon and Apple have been called a duopoly for their dominance in the e-book marketplace. While there are other companies in the business of producing passenger planes and e-books, the market share is highly concentrated between the two businesses identified in the duopoly


Collusion

•Collusion involves an agreement between competing entities with the purpose of manipulating the market often by inflating prices. For example, in 2012, Apple was accused of colluding with publishers to artificially inflate the prices of e-books offered through the iBookstore service. The accusation included charges of conspiracy between Apple and five publishers, suggesting that pricing was fixed and created an unfair situation within the consumer market.

Last modified: Tuesday, August 14, 2018, 10:21 AM