In violation of antitrust regulations, Samsung, Xiaomi, and other smartphone manufacturers conspired with Amazon and Walmart to offer items exclusively on the e-commerce companies’ Indian websites under the new platform Flipkart, according to regulatory reports.
Amazon and Flipkart broke local competition laws by giving preference to certain sellers, prioritizing certain listings, and sharply discounting products, which hurt other businesses.
These findings stem from antitrust investigations carried out by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
The Indian branches of five companies—Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, Realme, and OnePlus—were also “involved in the practice of exclusive” phone releases in “collusion” with Amazon and its affiliates, violating competition legislation, according to the CCI’s 1,027-page assessment on Amazon.
Laptops 1000According to a 1,696-page CCI report on Flipkart, similar activities were carried out by the Indian branches of Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, Vivo, Lenovo, and Realme.
The lawsuit may cause more legal and regulatory issues for smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi and Samsung.
“In business, exclusivity is frowned upon. In the same conclusions, CCI’s assistant director general G.V. Siva Prasad stated that it is “not only against free and fair competition, but also against the interest of consumers” in the reports on Flipkart and Amazon.
The CCI’s reports, dated August 9 and confidential, accuse smartphone makers of anticompetitive behaviors.
The other smartphone manufacturers did not respond to requests for comment, while Xiaomi, declined to comment.
Flipkart and the CCI did not reply to the studies’ conclusions and have not yet provided comments.
According to the CCI reports, Amazon and Flipkart “deliberately downplayed” claims of exclusive debuts throughout their investigations, but the practice was discovered to be “rampant”.
