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South Africa Probes Delivery-Like Apps For Dominance

By  |  February 24, 2021

The Competition Commission of South Africa will launch an “Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry (OIPMI),” which will encompass companies such as Takealot, Uber Eats, and Airbnb, reported MyBroadband.

The Commission published a draft for public comment outlining its plan to investigate these markets and stating that “the Commission has reason to believe that there exist market features which impede, distort or restrict competition amongst the platforms themselves, and which undermine the purposes of the [Competition] Act.”

This follows after a “Competition in the Digital Economy” whitepaper was published last year, in which the Competition Commission singled out Takealot for its dominance in South African ecommerce.

It has refined the scope of its investigation in this latest announcement, specifically naming Takealot as an important focus of its investigation regarding its share of the local ecommerce sector and the dual role played by the company as an online marketplace and a seller of products.

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