In a ruling that underscores India’s tightening scrutiny of Big Tech, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined US chipmaker Intel Rs 27.38 crore for enforcing a ‘discriminatory’ warranty policy that ran for nearly 8 years.
The regulator held that the company’s India-specific restrictions hurt competition, squeezed parallel importers, and limited consumer choice in a market where Intel enjoys a dominant position. The order follows a complaint by Matrix Info Systems, a parallel importer that flagged the change in Intel’s warranty terms in April 2016.
The policy allowed warranty support in India only for processors bought from the company’s authorised domestic distributors, even if identical products purchased from its approved global partners were genuine.
After a detailed probe, the CCI concluded that Intel’s conduct amounted to an abuse of dominance under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002. The commission noted that the chipmaker did not impose similar restrictions in several other countries, where global warranties remained valid regardless of the place of purchase.
By making India an exception, the company created a structural disadvantage for parallel importers, who typically compete on price.
With no local warranty, their products became less attractive to buyers, effectively insulating Intel’s authorised Indian distribution network from competition. The result, the regulator said, was reduced consumer choice and weakened price discipline in the market.
The fine, calculated at eight per cent of Intel’s average relevant turnover from boxed desktop processors, was moderated after the company withdrew the policy from April 1, 2024. Intel was also ordered to publish the revocation publicly and to file a compliance report within 60 days.
Beyond the fine imposed, the order is a wider signal: after-sales policies are not above antitrust law. Indeed, in industries dominated by worldwide supply chains and price-sensitive consumers, warranty terms determine market access conditions just as conclusively as pricing or supply agreements would.
For Indian consumers and small hardware resellers, the ruling restores a measure of flexibility, the ability to source genuine products globally without forfeiting warranty support at home.
For large technology firms, it marks another reminder that India’s competition watchdog is willing to look beyond headline pricing and examine the fine print of market practices, especially when those practices quietly redraw the boundaries of choice.