Oligopoly free essay sample

In recent years, American consumers preferences for soft drinks was changing from carbonated to non-carbonated soft drinks such as fruit juices or teas. This shift in taste gave Pepsi an excellent chance to challenge Coke. Pepsi purchased food giant Quaker Oats for $13 billion. Quaker Oats produces, in addition to Quaker oatmeal, a very popular non-carbonated soft drink called Gatorade with an annual sales of $2 billion. Pepsi also purchased a popular tonic called SoBe for $370 million. With these additions to its popular Tropicana orange juice, Pepsi now can challenge Coke at least in the non-carbonated soft drink market. Coke belatedly rose to Pepsis challenge, experimenting with 100 different non-carbonated soft drinks. Thus, with rapidly changing consumer tastes at work in the modern economy, an economic hierarchy of firms is constantly challenged and often changed. To maintain the oligopoly position, a firm must continue to expand by merger or diversification. More importantly, the firm must constantly search for the changing pattern of consumer taste and immediately adapt to it. We will write a custom essay sample on Oligopoly or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Otherwise, a mammoth firm of yesterday simply becomes a dinosaur of today. Did they buy out Pepsi yet? If not then they are not a monopoly. Are there a lot of competitors about the same size as Coke and Pepsi? If not then they are not a monopolistic competition. If these two have ruled out the other options then they must be an oligopoly, unless they are not an -opoly of any kind, but that seems unlikely to me.