One morning, while booking a flight from Mumbai to Bengaluru, something felt odd. Every reasonable option came from either IndiGo or Air India. Later that day, while recharging my phone, the choice again narrowed to two: Jio or Airtel. Ordering a book meant Amazon or Flipkart. Splitting a bill happened, predictably, via PhonePe or Google Pay.
Without announcement or alarm, India has entered the age of two—a phase where duopolies quietly shape everyday transactions. Whether we shop, pay, fly, or connect, much of our economic life increasingly flows through two dominant players. The shift has been so seamless that most of us barely notice it.
Economics, however, offers a sterner view. A duopoly sits precariously between competition and monopoly—“too few to compete vigorously, too many to collude openly” (Tirole, The Theory of Industrial Organization). In sectors with high entry barriers—telecom infrastructure, aircraft fleets, logistics networks, digital payments—duopolies are not accidental; they are almost inevitable.
India’s economy is now dotted with them.
Initially, consumers benefited. Once the dust settled, tariffs began creeping up. With Vodafone Idea struggling and BSNL lagging technologically, competitive pressure eased. When Jio or Airtel revises prices, the other typically follows within days—classic parallel pricing in a duopoly.
The deeper concern is systemic fragility. When two networks underpin payments, logistics apps, banking OTPs, telemedicine, and governance systems, failures cascade nationally.
This dominance isn’t born of anti-competitive behaviour but of early-mover advantage, design, and scale. Still, it raises structural questions. Two private apps now wield immense influence over user data, merchant visibility, and ecosystem incentives. Regulators spotted this early, proposing a 30 percent market-share cap—a rule repeatedly deferred because enforcing it could destabilise a critical system.
UPI was built to democratise payments. Its success has produced a platform duopoly atop a public pipe—a tension India must manage carefully.
The Competition Commission of India has flagged concerns around preferential sellers, exclusivity, and search bias. Consumers see variety, but it is curated by two gatekeepers.
India’s response is unusual. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) doesn’t seek to break the duopoly but to redesign the market architecture—shifting power from platforms to protocols, and from proprietary algorithms to interoperability. It is a bold experiment, watched globally.
But choice is wide, not diverse. The same cloud kitchens, promoted listings, and algorithm-driven menus appear everywhere. With fewer competitors, surge pricing and delivery charges have edged upwards. Price innovation has slowed even as convenience has peaked.
For restaurants, dependence on two platforms reduces bargaining power. Discovery is no longer organic; it is bought, boosted, and ranked. When demand is controlled by a duopoly, restaurants become suppliers rather than partners.
But stability is a double-edged sword. When one airline carries more than 60 percent of domestic passengers, an operational failure becomes a national event. The IndiGo meltdown—thousands of cancellations and delays—triggered fare caps, regulatory intervention, and public outrage. A private crisis became a public policy emergency.
In aviation duopolies, efficiency concentrates, but so does fragility.
The real question is how the next act is written. If India can balance openness with scale, and innovation with concentration, it can show that power need not become absolute. The age of two need not be the age of limits—if it becomes the age of balance.
Ashita Aggarwal is a Professor of Marketing at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR).
Views are personal.
First Published: Feb 06, 2026, 12:22
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