# duopoly
## English
### Etymology

* PIE word
* *dwóh₁
From duo- (prefix meaning ‘two’) +‎ -poly (suffix meaning ‘pertaining to the number of sellers in a market’), by analogy with monopoly.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /djuːˈɒpəli/, /duː-/
* (General American) IPA: /duˈɑpəli/
** Audio (General American):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒpəli
* Hyphenation: du‧o‧po‧ly

### Noun

duopoly (countable and uncountable, plural duopolies)
* (economics) An economic condition in which two sellers exert most control over the market of a commodity.
    Modern examples of duopoly include the American markets for credit cards (Visa and MasterCard), smartphones (Apple and Google), soft drinks (Coca-Cola and Pepsi), and airplanes (Airbus and Boeing).
* (by extension)
** The domination of a field of endeavour by two entities or people.
*** 2012 June 29, Kevin Mitchell, “Roger Federer back from Wimbledon 2012 brink to beat Julien Benneteau”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-11-15:In 2011, his spirit and body were shattered by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals. Last night, the stakes were just as high – even though the tournament is not out of the first week – because there is a creeping perception that the [Roger] Federer–[Rafael] Nadal duopoly is slowly giving way under pressure from below.
*** 2018 February 10, “Spain’s centrist Ciudadanos are on the march”, in The Economist‎, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-05-17:In Spain, Socialist and PP governments have alternated since the 1980s. This cosy duopoly was weakened by the long recession that followed the bursting of Spain’s housing bubble in 2007.
*** 2024 May 4, John Naughton, “The internet is in decline – it needs rewilding”, in The Guardian‎:And these industrial farms have concentrated into a series of duopolies. Google and Apple’s browsers have nearly 85% of the world market share. Microsoft and Apple’s two desktop operating systems have almost 90%. Google runs about 90% of global search. More than half of all phones come from Apple and Samsung, while 99% of mobile operating systems are from Google or Apple. Apple and Google’s email clients manage nearly 90% of global email. GoDaddy and Cloudflare serve about 50% of global domain name system requests. And so on.
    First past the post voting has long maintained American politics as an effective duopoly where power simply alternates between two main parties.
** (broadcasting) A situation in which two or more radio or television stations in the same city or community share common ownership.
    Synonym: (Canada) twinstick

#### Alternative forms

* dyopoly

#### Hyponyms

* (politics): two-partyism, two-party system

#### Coordinate terms

* duopsony
* monopoly
* oligopoly
* polypoly
* quadropoly
* quintopoly
* triopoly

#### Derived terms

* duopolism (rare)
* duopolist
* duopolistic
* duopolistically

#### Related terms

* duarchy

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ “duopoly, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “duopoly, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

### Further reading

* duopoly on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* duopoly (broadcasting) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia