IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/4m7yr_v1.html

Beyond the Discount War: Strategy and Survival in India’s Food Delivery Duopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Tarush, Akshat

    (Daikin India)

Abstract

India’s online food delivery market has consolidated into a stable duopoly following the exits of Uber Eats and Amazon Food. Standard Bertrand competition predicts that such a market structure should result in aggressive price discounting and persistent margin erosion. However, the observed trajectory of Zomato and Swiggy diverges from this prediction. This paper argues that the Indian food delivery duopoly is better understood through the framework of Nash equilibrium and repeated game theory rather than static price competition. Drawing on financial disclosures, regulatory developments and strategic investments across adjacent verticals, the analysis shows that both firms have shifted capital allocation toward quick commerce and dining and entertainment services. These investments reduce direct confrontation in the core food delivery segment and function as a structural analogue to mixed strategy behavior. Instead of committing exclusively to price based competition, each firm distributes resources across multiple business lines, generating strategic unpredictability and limiting profitable unilateral deviation. The stability of this equilibrium is reinforced by public market discipline that constrains explicit coordination while allowing tacit adjustment. The paper contributes to the understanding of platform competition in emerging digital markets by demonstrating how vertical differentiation can stabilize outcomes in environments where pure price rivalry would otherwise destroy value.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarush, Akshat, 2026. "Beyond the Discount War: Strategy and Survival in India’s Food Delivery Duopoly," SocArXiv 4m7yr_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:4m7yr_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/4m7yr_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/69ab79928566dd266859ccc4/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/4m7yr_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    2. James W. Friedman, 1973. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames: A Correction," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 435-435.
    3. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    4. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Aniko …ry & Ali Horta su & Kevin Williams, 2022. "Dynamic Price Competition: Theory and Evidence from Airline Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2341R1, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Apr 2023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    2. Jean J. Gabszewicz & Jacques-François Thisse, 2000. "Microeconomic theories of imperfect competition," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(1), pages 47-99.
    3. Ivaldi, Marc & Jullien, Bruno & Rey, Patrick & Seabright, Paul & Tirole, Jean, 2003. "The Economics of Tacit Collusion," IDEI Working Papers 186, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    4. Panayiotis Agisilaou, 2013. "Collusion in Industrial Economics and Optimally Designed Leniency Programmes - A Survey," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-03, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    5. Christian Schultz, 2002. "Transparency and Tacit Collusion in a Differentiated Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 730, CESifo.
    6. Thijssen, J.J.J., 2003. "Investment under uncertainty, market evolution and coalition spillovers in a game theoretic perspective," Other publications TiSEM 672073a6-492e-4621-8d4a-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Allain, Marie-Laure & Boyer, Marcel & Kotchoni, Rachidi & Ponssard, Jean-Pierre, 2015. "Are cartel fines optimal? Theory and evidence from the European Union," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-47.
    8. Labrecciosa Paola & Colombo Luca, 2010. "Technology Uncertainty and Market Collusion," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2005. "Managerial incentives and collusive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1501-1523, August.
    10. Wilson, Alistair J. & Wu, Hong, 2017. "At-will relationships: How an option to walk away affects cooperation and efficiency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 487-507.
    11. Ghidoni, Riccardo & Calzolari, Giacomo & Casari, Marco, 2017. "Climate change: Behavioral responses from extreme events and delayed damages," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S1), pages 103-115.
    12. Alexandre Chirat & Ulysse Lojkine, 2024. "Three views on economic power," EconomiX Working Papers 2024-31, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    13. Bart S. Vanneste & Douglas H. Frank, 2014. "Forgiveness in Vertical Relationships: Incentive and Termination Effects," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1807-1822, December.
    14. Christian Lukas & Jens Robert Schöndube, 2008. "Trust and Adaptive Learning in Implicit Contracts," FEMM Working Papers 08017, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    15. Simon Martin & Alexander Rasch, 2022. "Collusion by Algorithm: The Role of Unobserved Actions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9629, CESifo.
    16. Drew Fudenberg & David G. Rand & Anna Dreber, 2012. "Slow to Anger and Fast to Forgive: Cooperation in an Uncertain World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 720-749, April.
    17. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2002. "Globalization and Cooperative Relations," CEPR Discussion Papers 3522, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Louis Kaplow, 2024. "The 2023 Merger Guidelines and Market Definition: Doubling Down or Folding?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 65(1), pages 7-37, August.
    19. Marie-Laure Allain & Marcel Boyer & Jean-Pierre Ponssard & Rachidi Kotchoni, 2011. "The Determination of Optimal Fines in Cartel Cases - The Myth of Underdeterrence," CIRANO Working Papers 2011s-34, CIRANO.
    20. Osório-Costa, António M., 2009. "Efficiency Gains in Repeated Games at Random Moments in Time," MPRA Paper 13105, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:4m7yr_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.