price war

noun

1. intensive competition, especially among retailers, in which prices are repeatedly cut in order to undersell competitors or sometimes to force smaller competitors out of business.

price war

noun

1. a period of intense competition among enterprises, esp retail enterprises, in the same market, characterized by repeated price reductions rather than advertising, brand promotion, etc

Word History and Origins

Origin of price war¹

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Then, involution started being used to describe a similar dynamic in industries where a mismatch of supply and demand has spawned aggressive price wars.

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Beijing has been cracking down on excess capacity in some sectors to rein in “disorderly” competition and price wars.

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Eventually, though, relations settled down as ride-hailing companies stopped pouring money into a ruinous price war and black cabs improved their service by adopting card machines and smoother-running electric vehicles.

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Economists say the narrowing drop in prices suggest that Beijing’s recent moves to rein in corporate price wars are starting to have some effect, helped by consumer subsidy schemes.

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Enterprises can shift incremental load from one provider to another for pricing—and there’s a massive price war brewing in cloud computing.

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