Disruption in mobile industries: Free Mobile and Reliance Jio
Résumé
How companies disrupt existing markets has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Academics and regulators have sought to understand the impact of disruptive companies on the structure of markets, in terms of the strategies adopted and how incumbents react. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of disruption in regulated industries by analysing the case of two companies, Free Mobile in France and Reliance Jio in India. By analysing the interactions that occurs between the drivers of disruption and disruptors’ strategies, we show that contextual external and internal factors may play an important role in explaining the level and form of disruption. Our paper also demonstrates that in regulated industries such as telecommunications, the mainstream disruption theory only partially explains the disruptions observed.