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is an
Olig
opol
y?
hat

A m
arke
a few
t do
mina
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a
r
ge f
are a
t
ed b
r
m
b
exer le colle s who y
t con
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and
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t
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ket p
s
rices upply

Exam
p le s
ol i g o
o f th
p ol i s
es e
t
i
c
in t h
mar
kets
e re
al w
orld

Example 1: The Search Engine Market

The search engine market is a clear example
of an oligopolistic market. Although this
market is an oligopoly Google has Monopoly
power because it owns more than a 25%
market share, in fact it owns 61%.
The search engine market is an oligopoly
because there are only a few large frms
selling a service rather than many frms in
perfect competition.
The search engine market is made up of
three main frms, Google, Yahoo and
Microsoft (Bing).
Google is the dominant frm
however since Microsoft's launch
of bing for 60 in 2009 they have
become a serious rival to Google
with searches rising by around
22%. Yahoo on the contrary has
endured a torrid time. They have
experience a relentless drop in
their market share leaving them

Example 2: The Mobile Network

Market

The Mobile Network Market Consists

again of only a few large frms and is
therefore an oligopoly. The market is
mainly divided up into 5 main frms with
EE the new mobile network frm formed
when orange and
T-Mobile
merged, the most dominant frm. They
hoped to wipe out other frms to turn this
oligopoly into a monopoly. Currently this
is going very well and they taking the
market share away from former market
leaders O2 and Vodaphone.

Do F
i
r
in an ms Co
mp e
o lig o
te
p ol y
?

H ow

E xa m
p l es
Firm
o
s ha f when
ve F
price ixed
s

Example: Oil price Fixing

These frms have worked together to fx

prices so that they can all make more
money it is a semi Cartel. They work
together so that they charge higher
prices and because there are no other
suppliers the customers have to buy it
from them. When this takes place the
frm makes more revenue and therefore
more proft.