Big-tech global firms challenge homegrown startup growth: CCI top official

Indian start-ups struggle to take on global huge tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, because of their large resources and control of information, claimed Ansuman Pattnaik, supervisor general, Competition Commission of India (CII), the country’s anti-trust body.

There are concerns of system nonpartisanship also,” he claimed, aiming out cost taking care of as one of the obstacles native start-ups face.

Ensuring the startup creators, Pattnaik claimed if their companies face such problems, they ought to feel comfy stepping forward and filing a problem prior to the payment. “We do market modifications. If the startups locate that they are getting a brief slip from a big company, and their business processes have been prevented, they can file an issue prior to the payment and we will certainly take up the case. A couple of instances have recently helped start-ups,” he stated.

Assuring the start-up owners, Pattnaik claimed if their firms encounter such problems, they should really feel comfortable coming forward and submitting an issue before the commission.

In its ruling in March 2025, the National Firm Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) repeated that Google had abused its dominant market setting by imposing unjust problems on application designers. The tribunal reduced the great imposed on Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent firm, from Rs 936.44 crore to Rs 216.69 crore.

“Startups do encounter problems with the large electronic firms, widely called GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) and now NVIDIA. It is since these companies are pretty powerful and have rich resources and information. Against them, start-ups sometimes find trouble in growing,” said Pattnaik.

Describing the instance of Google and messaging strong WhatsApp, Pattnaik stated, “Google was not permitting alternative settlement processes through their app, currently they have been allowed. Lately, we likewise passed an order versus Meta. WhatsApp was taking the data of all the customers and organizations and sharing it with the primary company, Meta. There was no opt-out process. Versus those orders, some intriguing decisions have actually been submitted which are mosting likely to help startups.”

“The significant difficulties are like self-references as they (big-tech firms) advertise their products rather than the products of start-ups. There are concerns of system neutrality also,” he claimed, aiming out price taking care of as one of the difficulties organic startups encounter.

In the situation of WhatsApp, the CCI imposed a penalty of Rs 213 crore on Meta over WhatsApp’s data-sharing policy. It also banned WhatsApp from sharing user information with Meta unless customers were given an opt-out option. The NCLAT has actually delayed the hearing of the situation in the meantime.

“Start-ups do face troubles with the huge digital firms, popularly called GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) and currently NVIDIA. Versus them, start-ups sometimes find difficulty in expanding,” said Pattnaik.